TWENTY YEARS OF SCHOOLIN'

The Social Realist Roots of UK Soaps

2012-02-24T08:44:00.001Z

The social realist roots of soaps

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Iconic Actors by Beth Drape

2012-01-24T12:25:00.001Z

Iconic Actors 2

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Exam Revision

2012-01-09T19:53:00.001Z

G322 Revision

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From http://mediastudiesringwood.blogspot.com/

The Hollywood Industrial Model versus the British Independent film

2012-01-03T20:57:00.003Z

When the first of the rebooted Batman series, opened in 2008, it was shown in 4366 screens in the UK; when the British independent filom, This is England, opened in 2007, it was shown in only 62 screens.What does this tell us? Well, Batman, even though it was the first of the new series, was, nevertheless, part of a franchise. An earlier series of films had been made and exhibited (to varying degrees of critical and commercial success) only a few years previoulsy, but the character is something of an icon in American (and worldwide) popular culture and many people of the key cinema going age range of 15-25 will be familiar with him; furtheromore, he is historically significant in popular culture, having appeared first in the 1940s, which may broaden his appeal and there were ready made promotional partners - the comic books, cartoon DVDs, toys, T shirts etc existed long before the Dark Knight movie.Why else would it appeal? The title, Dark Knight, siginfied a new, darker, mature approach to the story which might attract an older audience. On top of that, director Christopher Nolan was noted for his sophisticated, intelligent approach to movie-making and star Christian Bale was noted for starring in left of field movies that appealed to an adult audience.All these features, plus the publicity and marketing (it had several official websites instead of the usual one) backed by the financially empowered, vertically integrated global media conglomerate, Warner Brothers, with its obvious links to Time-Warner-AOL (though it ended its ties with AOL in 2009) as well as DC Comics, the publisher of Batman (which it owned), made this movie an event release and cinema chains are in the business to make money. As much as possible.This is England (and remember, we're talking four years BEFORE the TV series), cost £1,500,000 (as opposed to The dark Knight's budget of $185,000,000) was a specific type of British movie - one that falls into the working class genre; a film that used the medium to explore working class issues and to highlight the class system and the often violent and dysfunctional effects it can have the working class community. There has been a history of this kind of film in the UK from the early 1960s, although those films often used major stars of stage or screen. It was never going to have a massive box-office appeal and was shown largely in independent cinemas. The writer-director Shane Meadows did have a significant reputation, had been nominated for numerous awards and had won several British Independent Film awards. This is England went on to receive critical acclaim in the UK and the USA and won a BAFTA for the best British film.A number of production companies were involved: Big Arty Productions, EM Media, Film4, Optimum Releasing, Screen Yorkshire, UK Film Council, Warp Films and Optimum was the distributor in the UK.In reality, the two films were not competitors, but this gives an indication of how difficult it is for a British film, particularly one that is liable to have more of a British audience - and perhaps even a specific British audience - to compete with a film made by a powerful American media giant with a global audience (and it was, not incidentally, scheduled to open at the beginning of the British school summer holidays of that year, to maximise its audience), but if you owned a cinema chain, which film do you think would bring in the most money?

Marketing The Deathly Hallows

2012-01-03T20:00:00.001Z

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: The Marketing Campaign

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From http://mediastudiesringwood.blogspot.com/

Technological Convergence

2012-01-03T19:58:00.002Z

Tech convergence

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Institutions and Audiences - concepts revision

2012-01-03T16:24:00.003Z

Revision concepts, tbtr and avatar

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Institutions and Audiences: Key Concept Areas

2012-01-03T16:21:00.002Z

Revision key concept areas broken down

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Distribution - Hollywood and Independent

2012-01-01T19:48:00.002Z

Independent v hollywood distribution

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British Film and Hollywood

2012-01-01T19:42:00.000Z

Revision uk film and the hollywood context

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From http://mediastudiesringwood.blogspot.com/

Institutions and Audiences Question and Plan #5

2011-12-30T19:06:00.000Z

Successful media products depend as much on marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

1. Film distribution = everything that happens between the film being made and it being exhibited, whether in a cinema, on DVD, TV, the internet or anywhere else. Distribution is the most important part of the film industry, where completed films are brought to life and connected with an audience
2. Distribution is about releasing and sustaining films in the market place. In the practice of Hollywood and other forms of industrial cinema, the phases of production, distribution and exhibition operate most effectively when 'vertically integrated', where the three stages are seen as part of the same larger process, under the control of one company. In the UK, distribution is very much focused on marketing and sustaining a global product in local markets.
3. In the independent film sector, vertical integration does not operate so commonly. Producers tend not to have long-term economic links with distributors, who likewise have no formal connections with exhibitors. Here, as the pig-in-the-middle, distribution is necessarily a collaborative process, requiring the materials and rights of the producer and the cooperation of the exhibitor to promote and show the film in the best way possible.
4. 50% of money spent on a film often goes on promotion Film is a business like any other; it doesn’t rely on waiting and listening to audience response before delivering the product; it relies on knowing which part of the world and the media need its products and will pay for them. Does market forces competition give the consumer more power and choice and, therefore, influence, what’s made OR does it convince us that what we want is being made for us? Do millions go to see The Dark Knight when it opens because it’s a great film or because it’s been well-marketed? Or both?
5. Promotion involves above the line advertising, such as posters, trailers, billboards and spin-offs and promotional partners. It also involves related merchandising and below the line publicity which is not paid for but generates mutual interest. For example, an interview with a star in a newspaper or reviews in a magazine. Not all films are treated equally.
6. Bigger companies (i.e. those Hollywood majors like Sony-Columbia) have more financial muscle to promote their product and the big companies who control much of the industry, control not only the distribution of their own products, but that of others.
7. However, the product itself can be ‘shaped’ or ‘tailored’ to certain audiences. Slumdog was devised in a way that it would appeal to a global audience – explain how – talk about the significance of the deal with Celador, of hiring the particular writer and director; the significance of the Indian nationality of most of the crew; the language; the cast; the storyline and the way it was changed from the already successful source material; the style of filming.
8. Beyond that, though, the film had to carefully marketed and distributed – look at the deals made to ensure distribution around the world, because Celador/Film 4 isn’t a vertically integrated company with its own distribution companies in other countries.
9. Look at the way it shown in film festivals – especially in Toronto, a city with a large Asian population.
10. Look at the effect of its platform release
11. What about the marketing/promotional tactics – backed by Fox, the director amd stars had access to Fox TV shows and Fox websites to promote Slumdog; the film had its own website – what was on it? How was the film promoted using the website? Use of social networking and below the line adbertising by fans of the film on their social networking sites? Viral marketing?
12. Note the long tail effect of the way the film’s release and its website serve to promote the DVD and BluRay releases long after the film has been shown in cinemas

Institutions and Audiences Question and Plan #4

2011-12-30T19:04:00.000Z

Discuss the ways in which media products are produced and distributed to audiences within a media are you have studied.
1. Look at Slumdog in detail – how Film4 and Celador had to overcome the financial issues and the dominance of the major US companies in the UK. Note the way that steps were taken during the production to ensure the film appealed to a wide – even global – audience in order to combat films released by major studios – but that it had to sell distribution rights overseas in order to secure further funding and support.
2. Note the way it was initially released at film festivals and distributed to build its audience
3. When you do this you will need to talk about an example of a large US company – what are the advantages of Sony being a vertically integrated company in terms of production and distribution?
4. In complete contrast, look at the way a small independent company like Amber funds, produces and distributes their product. Long Tail aspect – their DVDs will continue to sell over a long period of time
5. Look at the role of film websites and viral marketing – don’t forget that websites exist long after the film has finished the run in the cinemas and they promote the DVD/BluRay
6. Don’t forget to talk about downloading, legal and illegal and the way audiences have become prosumers, using social networking sites etc to unofficially promote views to a potential audience of millions around the world.
7. Note the development of the digital screen network in the UK and talk about the hopes for digital distribution in the future and how and why it will be an improvement

Institutions and Audiences Question and Plan #3

2011-12-30T19:03:00.000Z

How important is technological convergence for institutions and audiences within a media area you have studied?
1. Very…
2. Say what it is
3. Note how a major vertically integrated company like Sony can use convergence – look at a film website, use of viral marketing, social networking – look at 2012 as an example.
4. Then discuss how a UK production company like Film4 and Celador have to make deals to ensure successful production, marketing, distribution, and exhibition.
5. Note the website acts a hub for information about the film – uses flash and streaming technologies, using links to information about the film, cast, crew; using links to social network sites. Talk about the way social network sites can target ads to audiences based on user profiles. Note the Long Tail effect – the film website will act as a promotional tool for the DVD/BluRay long after the film has finished being exhibited in cinemas. On some websites, such as those for Sony films, there are links to other upcoming Sony films. Note the advantages of being a vertically integrated company like Sony.
6. Talk about Slumdog’s use of viral marketing
7. Talk about the use of new smart phone technology to allow you to surf the net, download information, have trailers sent to your phones and watch movies (legally or illegally) on the phone
8. Talk about the way the audience have become prosumers… audiences use social networking sites –post their own reviews, post trailers from YouTube, post their own mash-ups, post songs from the soundtracks. These sites have a potential audience of millions. Some ‘audience’ sites, like aintitcool.com, have been quoted in press reviews. Negative reviews/comments on widely read sites like this can have an effect on other users and make up their minds about whether or not they see the film

Institutions and Audiences Question and Plan #2

2011-12-30T18:59:00.001Z

Media Production is dominated by global institutions which sell their products and services to national audiences. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

1. Yes – there are a handful of media conglomerates that dominate the film business in the UK. Vertical integration allows a company like SONY to dominate all stages – production, marketing, distribution, exhibition – give some explanation of Sony’s development and don’t miss out the link with Columbia…
2. How can smaller companies fight back? Use Celador and Slumdog to explain – look at the deals made to get the film made and distributed and marketed. Look at its deal with Fox and how Fox promoted it on its website. Look at its use of social networking sites and viral marketing.
3. See how the film was crafted to appeal to as large an audience as possible (storyline, cast, crew, deal with Celador etc...) including the vast and largely untapped (by Hollywood) Asian audience.
4. How was Slumdog released to gain the widest audience possible?
5. Danger – these companies almost have a monopoly and the ability to squeeze out small companies. Larger companies can write off the odd loss or bankroll films aimed at a niche audience too because their other films and other aspects of the business are so profitable whereas smaller companies can go bankrupt, unless their product is created astutely or they can make deals with major companies, even, in the case of Working Title, becoming part of a larger US company and having links with the French company Canal Plus. However, smaller British regional films without the appeal to a huge audience will be tougher to make. How does Amber survive?

Institutions and Audiences Question and Plan #1

2011-12-30T18:54:00.003Z

What significance does the continuing development of digital media technology have for media institutions and audiences?

1. New developments all the time
2. Recent developments can be illustrated in the use of technological convergence to promote films – look at official film websites e.g. Slumdog a) streaming of video material b) flash technology c) links to games etc to increase interactivity, which in turn creates the illusion of giving the audience a sense of ownership so they will be more likely to see the film/DVD d) links to social networking (sites such as…), which again creates a sense of interactivity e) links to reviews, interviews etc. f) the Long Tail effect – the film website will act as a promotional tool for the DVD/BluRay long after the film has finished being exhibited in cinemas. On some websites, such as those for Sony films, there are links to other upcoming Sony films. Note the advantages of being a vertically integrated company like Sony.
3. Viral marketing – look at Slumdog, again…
4. Use of phones to watch trailers, films, to browse the net for information about films
5. Use of digital movie cameras and editing – refer to Slumdog and Amber…
6. Owners of social network sites target adverts, including those for films, to individuals based on their profiles
7. Use of CGI – can create more realistic effects; can create the illusion of crowds, landscapes and cityscapes that could save money – although over reliance on effects can lead to movies where the effects are the main reason to see the movie! However, these kind of films are popular with the main cinema-going audience, the 16-25 year-olds
8. Digital distribution and exhibition – what state is it currently in the UK? What are the hopes for future development? How does a small, independent company like Amber use new technology to promote and distribute their works?
9. Legal downloads – has the music industry shown the way? Will the trend be for people to download from sites such as netflix?
10. Illegal downloads – how have companies tried to combat this i.e. early DVD/BluRay releases…
11. The audience as prosumers… audiences use social networking sites –post their own reviews, post trailers from YouTube, post their own mash-ups, post songs from the soundtracks. These sites have a potential audience of millions. Some ‘audience’ sites, like aintitcool.com, have been quoted in press reviews. Negative reviews/comments on widely read sites like this can have an effect on other users and make up their minds about whether or not they see the film

Sony and Vertical Integration

2011-12-13T14:42:00.000Z

Sony's development and vertical integration

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Media Ownership Essay for first week back

2011-12-13T12:17:00.001Z

Discuss the issues raised by Media Ownership in the production and exchange of media texts in your chosen media area.

Key issues – UK dominated by the Hollywood industrial model and vertically integrated companies – easier to use synergy and convergence to produce and promote their products – e.g Sony and Spider Man – or pick your own example.

British film industry – difficult to get funding; difficult to get distribution and exhibition. One third of the film not in English. How did Slumdog achieve its success in the face of this? The appeal of the story? Look at the deals that had to be made to get the film funded and produced. The use of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? Its appeal to the Indian market both in India and amongst the diaspora (the Indian audience abroad – in the UK, Canada and the USA, for example). Look at the deals that were made to get it distributed and promoted (remember, because of the distribution deal it had access to Fox websites and Fox TV to help with promotion). Look at the way it was released. Look at the use of digital technology – which is another issue facing the film industry – so look at the Slumdog website, its use of flash and streaming technology and how it acts as a hub; note the use of interactivity to give the audience a sense of ownership so they’d be more likely to pay to see it so you can talk about the possibilities of digital distribution and the way things might go in the future; use of viral marketing to attract an audience – be specific about what was done.

Other issues – illegal downloads – early release of DVD/BluRay to combat this – and ‘long tail’ aspects of this – the DVD will still be bringing in money long after the film has been available in the cinemas.
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2011/12/slumdog-millionaire-viral-trailer.html
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2011/12/slumdog-millionaire-and-viral-marketing.html
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/12/explore-funding-issues-faced-by-media.html
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/12/slumdog-millionaire-key-notes-in-case.html
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/12/slumdog-on-dvd.html
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/12/explore-some-of-ways-in-which-new.html
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/12/slumdog-and-audience.html
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/04/slumdog-as-global-film.html
http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/04/slumdog-millionaire.html

OCR Unit G332

2011-12-12T21:17:00.001Z

Questions from the last few years:

1. Discuss the issues raised by Media Ownership in the production and exchange of media texts in your chosen media area.

2. What significance does the continuing development of digital media technology have for media institutions and audiences?

3. Media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their products and services to national audiences. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

4. How important is technological convergence for institutions and audiences within a media area you have studied?

5. Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

6. Discuss the ways in which media products are produced and distributed to audiences within a media area you have studied.

http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/type/gce/amlw/media_studies/documents/

Slumdog Millionaire Viral Trailer

2011-12-12T20:46:00.003Z

A remixed viral trailer for the UK release of the Oscar-tipped Danny Boyle film 'Slumdog Millionaire', using only images and sounds from the film was produced by audiovisual artists Addictive TV.

Addictive TV was approached by French film company Pathe and filmmaker Boyle to create a mash-up video for 'Slumdog Millionaire' after giving similar treatments to previous blockbuster film releases such as 'Iron Man'.

Pathe, who also led viral-based marketing with the release of the Michel Gondry film 'Be Kind Rewind' last year, approached Addictive TV to help market 'Slumdog Millionaire' through online video sharing sites.

Graham Daniels, Addictive TV front man, said: "It's great Pathe are taking a lead in the independent film sector like this, and sharing our vision of film remixing.

"With our style of work, 'Slumdog Millionaire' is an amazing film to play with, it's so cinematic and evocative in both sound and picture, it's really colourful and vibrant, and with Danny Boyle known for his cutting edge approach to music and film, making this kind of remix for his movie seems like a natural fit."

Director Danny Boyle asked Addictive TV to create an alternative web trailer for "Slumdog Millionaire", by sampling sounds and images from the film and producing something entirely new made from only those audiovisual samples.

http://www.mixmag.net/words/news/slumdog-millionaire-trailer-gets-remixed-by-addictive-tv

Slumdog Millionaire and Viral Marketing

2011-12-12T20:33:00.003Z

So, how did a British film produced by Danny Boyle with a modest budget become such a huge hit? How was the film, depicting life in the slums of Mumbai, so well marketed that everyone was talking about it long before it went on general release?

As they developed their marketing launch plan Pathé focused on digital marketing as an effective and highly accountable route to build awareness of the film with the public.

They appointed digital media agency Tug to work with them to raise awareness of the film in the UK while also targeting niche audiences such as Indian movie goers and Danny Boyle enthusiasts.

To support their above the line advertising Pathé developed a suite of online marketing collateral. These included a viral application, a widget and a trailer focused microsite for Tug to work with.

Tug developed a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign on the major UK search engines targeting searchers interested in: Pathé , Bollywood, Danny Boyle, Slumdog, Indie movies and the like.

Tug launched targeted banners across the Google Content network to build awareness of the film on a cost per click model.

Tug worked with Google to create click to play trailer ads. Pathé only paid when the surfer clicked through to the microsite. Banner and even trailer views were free!

Tug tested and improved ad copy weekly, and included “Bafta award” and “box office hit” messaging when the movie met these milestones.

A tactical search engine optimisation (SEO) programme was also put in place concentrating on the film name to ensure top positioning for the difficult to index, flash microsite.

The PPC campaign drove more than 75,000 new visitors to SlumdogMillionaireMovie.co.uk. Over 73,000 movie goers engaged with and viewed the video trailer and more than 21 million ad impressions were served and viewed by targeted audiences– for free. (on a blind network at £5 CPM that would have cost over £100K)

These results cost £13,000 in media spend over a 5 week burst. And the overall result? Slumdog Millionaire smashed UK box office records and has won 7 Bafta awards and eight Oscars.

http://www.tugsearch.co.uk/search-engine-marketing-case-studies/film/pathe-slumdog-millionaire.php

Textual Analysis – The Next Steps

2011-11-24T09:32:00.000Z

It is very important for everyone to review their progress in textual analysis. You are about to embark on an Assessment for Learning unit where you will:
a) Find out more about how your work will be assessed
b) Identify both good practice and become more critical in identifying how work can be improved
c) Critically reflect upon your own work and make changes in your approach to boost your attainment.

You need to:
1) Watch the exam text again
2) Read through the assessment criteria (blue sheets) and identify what skills / standards are required (you should all be aiming for Levels 3 and 4)
3) Make sure you understand the three different assessment objects and understand what they actually mean by these terms a) Explanation, analysis and argument b)Use of example c) Use of terminology
4) Using the stimulus material provided by SO analyse the strengths and areas for improvement in both essays
5) Award marks and be prepared to justify your judgements making specific references to the mark scheme
Following this discussion, and following further analysis of good practice you will:
a) Be expected to redraft your orginal attempt in order to put into practice “good practice”
b) Sit another mock exam on textual analysis AND film institution the week before the Christmas hols.
Please note – you will be receiving your marked scripts early next week as we are currently identifying anyone who needs to attend booster classes in advance of the exam.

VERY IMPORTANT – our departmental blog – www.heworth.mediastudies.blogspot.com is packed with very useful revision materials and this is regularly updated so make sure you use it!!!!!!

Please remember – this is a very large class but teaching staff in Media Studies are very keen to support you in the run up to the exam and with your coursework. Always ask questions and seek out feedback if you are unsure how to make progress.

Many thanks
EH, GW, SO

Film Industry Essay

2011-11-22T09:40:00.007Z

For next Tuesday's lesson...

How significant have convergence, synergy and vertical integration been in the development of Sony and its ability to produce, promote and distribute films? Make reference to Spider-Man and your own choice of recent release. You must consider DVD and BluRay as product too - note the role Sony played in the development of BluRay technology.

Start by saying that vertical integration (which you'll need to define) has allowed Sony to use synergy and convergence in its production, promotion and distribution/exhibtion of films.

As well as your own research, use the following:

http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/04/as-film-industry-hollywood-model.html

http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/04/as-film-industry-sony-hollywood-model.html

http://heworthmediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/04/convergence-and-british-film-industry-i.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/nov/17/music-universal-emi-buyout?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/11/emi-sold-to-universal-and-sony?INTCMP=SRCH

See if you can find anything about Sony's use of viral marketing - google the movie 2012 (the Wikipedia site is good for this) or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (but make sure you get the right version, not the original Swedish one!)

Year 12 Textual Analysis: The representation of Gender in Doctor Who

2011-11-21T14:46:00.000Z

Read the two essay responses very carefully. Answer the following questions:
1. Compare and contrast the two introductions. Which one do you think is more effective? Why?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Look at how each candidate uses PEE. Identify the strongest section of analysis in each section. Why is it effective?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Identify a weak section of analysis. How can it be improved? Redraft the PEE chain you have chosen making the necessary improvements.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Mark the essay overall according to the assessment criteria

Explanation – analysis & argument /20
Evidence - Use of examples /20
Use of terminology
(Including accuracy and spelling) /10

Total………………………………………… /50

5. Give the essay 2 stars and 2 wishes.

6. Compare and contrast the two conclusions. Top tip – Conclusions MUST relate to the representation. You could end it by summarising which technical code emerges as the most powerful and why. You should have commented on this in the main body of your essay.
Which conclusion is more effective and why?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Storyboarding

2011-11-13T19:40:00.000Z

Storyboarding from Vimeo Video School on Vimeo.

Chapter 2 - Storyboarding from Carleton Torpin on Vimeo.

Year 12 - Media Extended Project

2011-10-31T11:55:00.001Z

Cinema through the Ages

• Group 1: The rise of the “Gore Films” compared to the classic horror
• Group 2: The transition to “talkies”
• Group 3: Making Money! The Importance of studios and institutions & their
love of franchise
• Group 4: The role of women in film
• Group 5: Iconic films: The impact of ‘big’ films on the industry
• Group 6: Cinema in the 1980s: Focus on 2 directors
• Group 7: Iconic actors and their impact on the film industry
• Group 8: The silent movies

You must produce a presentation on your given topic. You can use moving image, Photoshop, PowerPoint, posters, collage, costume, props, acting…be creative. We don’t want death by PowerPoint!

Remember EVERYONE must focus on a second section: The rise of the Viral Campaign – how might you promote YOUR film (hypothetically!) now, in 2011?

THIS SHOULD NOT INTERRUPT YOUR WORK AND REVISION FOR YOUR EXAM IN JANUARY. YOU WILL NOT HAVE TIME IN CLASS TO DO THIS. TEXTUAL ANALYSIS COMES FIRST – THIS PRESENTATION SHOULD BE COMPLETED IN YOUR OWN TIME.

DEADLINE: THURSDAY 15TH DECEMBER

Year 12 Textual Analysis - State of Play

2011-10-20T10:30:00.002+01:00

AS Media Studies

Read through the sample analysis as evidence of good practice. You will notice that analysis is good, however there is a lack of attention on representation of race. This is an essential aspect of your analysis and you must ensure that you repeatedly reread the question to check the focus for your answer.

• Circle / highlight what you consider to be subject specific language – what proportion of this essay uses media language appropriately?
• Comment on the strengths of this analysis – to what extent is it really evaluative
• How could you further embed analysis on representation of ethnicity – remember your focus shouldn’t just be on the black youth BUT the other characters AND you can be brave enough to only select THE MOST relevant sections of the extract.
• TASK – redraft this essay making all the necessary improvements

Essay title:
How are representations of ethnicity established through the following technical codes: mise en scene, camera shot, angle, movement and position (cinematography), sound and editing.
Response

In exploring the technical codes we can see that mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound and editing is used exhaustively throughout the sequence to immediately establish genre and attract immediate interest. In particular the use of costume, props, setting, and lighting reinforces the contrast of the three separate narratives (stories) that appear to be connected. As a result the opening sequence deliberately does not make sense so the audience is pulled into watching more.

In the first narrative we see through mise-en-scene of lighting and setting that the location for each narrative is daytime, innercity London. The opening shot features a tracking shot, possibly using steadycam, as the audience are positioned in the middle of a frantic chase between two unknown characters. The deliberate cinematography focusing only on their feet and legs immediately creates intrigue. Through a series of mid shots and close ups the main character is revealed to be a black youth who is dressed in a hoodie, jeans and he wears an earring; this is arguably a stereotypical representation of a black youth, particularly as he seems to be in trouble..He is being chased by an assassin who is dressed in dark, formal clothing, (arguably anti hero characters are often dressed using a dark palette), however this assassin is also smartly dressed which connotates he is a professional. The use of handheld camera and tracking shots places the audience in the centre of the action and a series of short cuts increases the pace of the editing to create excitement. At the point when the black youth is hiding from his assassin the pace of the editing slows dramatically as the audience waits on tenterhooks until the climax of the murder conveyed through a dramatic point of view shot. A combination of diegetic sound, for example heavy breathing from the youth to connotate a lengthy chase, and non diegetic sound through ambient music- (arguably tribal music is played during the chase sequence to further represent his black identity)- ensures the opening sequence makes full use of the technical codes to excite the audience.

In sharp contrast the second narrative introduces a dramatically different character: a white, male middle aged and of high social status. His clothing immediately symbolises his superior status as he wears a shirt, tie and expensive suit. With reference to props he is reading a Financial Times which is indicative that he has a professional occupation. Through the mise en scene of gesture he has a serious disposition and the dimmed lighting and surroundings indicate that he is on the tube, possibly on his way to work in the city. Most of the cinematography focussing on this character features a series of mid and long shots so that the audience can pick up clues through clothing and gestures.

The third narrative introduces another contrast; a young girl aged approximately twelve who is waiting in a café with an essential prop central to the narrative: a black plastic bag disguising a silver brief case. A mid shot pans down to a close up of the bag to reinforce the significance of this prop to the narrative. The director uses mise en scene to reflect the passage of time as we see within the frame that the girl has had time to consume three cans of coke. Through gesture and a series of returning mid shots and close ups, the girl is directed to appear nervous and anxious through body language and facial expression.

All three narratives combine to embed conventions of the thriller / conspiracy genrepresent the audience with a series of questions: why are these three disparate (different )characters connected? Why was the black youth assassinated? What is in the bag?

Collective Identity Stuff...

2011-06-05T20:20:00.003+01:00

Collective Identity

You must refer to two or more media and you must bring in some historical references, even if the question doesn’t ask for them directly. You should be able to show awareness of how representation has changed or developed.

Likewise, while the question may not refer directly to collective identity, you will have to refer to theory.

Representation - Gurevitch and Roberts in Stuart Price's "Media Studies" book 1993: "Mediation is the process of the representation of events through the media."
Thomas De Zengotita (2005) – Almost everything we know about the world comes to us through some sort of media and this influences our view of the world and even our self-definition.

One aspect to consider is WHY that particular representation has been created. Remember that the working classes had been pretty much marginalised in popular film until the late 1950s/early 1960s. There were exceptions like Love on the Dole (1941), but in most films, the working class knew their place, supportive of the middle or upper classes – as in the World War Two dramas like Went the Day Well and The Way Ahead. This type of representation could be seen to reinforce Gramsci’s theory of hegemony: much of the media is controlled by the dominant group in society and the viewpoints associated with this group inevitably become embedded in the products themselves (representation of class, for example), even if the promotion of these views isn’t conscious, dominant views come to be seen as the norm - hence the marginalisation in the representation of the working class in British cinema until the late 1950s.

Note that the ‘angry young man’ films sprang up from novels and theatre of the period, so they were already reflecting a genre, if you like. Note the conventional centrality of the male character to films like Room at the Top and Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. Despite the working class milieu, these were major films and would be vying with Hollywood product of the time, and would comfortably fit in with the social realist American cinema of Elia Kazan, as well as the French New Wave. They were aimed at the traditional cinema-going audience and would open in major cinema chains, something which only popular working class films can do today because of the dominance of Hollywood.

Note how the representation of working class life was so obviously different on the small screen on Coronation Street. What does this tell you about the aims of the makers and their intended audience?

How has representation of the working class changed in soaps? You need to state the influence of early Brookside, but the success of Neighbours with its focus on young members of the cast has probably been influential too.

Soaps’ appeal to women:
Soaps were originally conceived as dramas to appeal to women – serialised domestic dramas on US radio from the 1930s sponsored by various advertisers, including soap powder manufacturers– rooted in popular serialised novels for women from the 19th century. Maintained popularity until 1950s – transferred to TV.

Soaps… focus on female characters not as mysterious or peripheral figures of crime and action series, but as everyday people coping with the problems of life (Glaessner, 1987).

Geraghty (1991) – four elements explain why TV soap appeals to women:

1) Central female character the audience can identify with
2) An acknowledgement of the importance of domestic sphere in people’s lives
3) An emphasis on the importance of relationships
4) The privileging of fantasy linked to the private sphere.

Note also Hobson (1982) talking about Crossroads, claimed soaps gave the female viewers a ‘cultural space’ in the dominant patriarchal society that they could call their own.

Soap narrative appeals to women because there is no real beginning, middle or end (Modleski, 1997); Soap is ‘an infinitely extended middle’ (Fiske, 1987). They mean that there is often no real resolution to stories and this reflects the position of women in a patriarchal society: men succeed, but for women, success is endlessly deferred – they are less likely to succeed, like likely to achieve resolution.

Why the increase in crime stories in soaps? Why the blurring of the line between middle and working class characters (particularly in Eastenders)? How do they attempt to appeal to a multi-cultural audience?

At the same time, look how the credits of Coronation Street have recently changed – as if the makers of the show are playing on nostalgia and affection for the past – and it’s true that the audience for Coronation Street is generally older than for Eastenders. So who is constructing what particular kind of working class identity here and for what purpose?

What do the popular working class films (and stress you are discussing popular working class films) of recent years have in common? The use of traditional working class visual signifiers (and audio, in terms of brass band music); family dysfunction and hardship caused by loss of employment; accent; males having to overcome stereotypes (or is that a stereotype in itself). What is the representation of women like? Are any of the films directly political? As with many films, American money was needed to help the production so to recoup costs they had to be successful on the foreign market. What seem to be quintessentially British films also have a universal appeal. Why was the Full Monty (which was later turned into an Americanised Broadway musical) a success in America?

Another aspect you must refer to is that certain tropes used in the representation of working class life have roots in writing and illustration from the 1840s (in the works of writers such as Mrs Gaskell, for example) and photography of the late 1800s. These images seem to have been culturally ingrained in the collective consciousness of what working class life is: cobbled streets, terraced houses in the shadow of smoky factories, men in big coats and caps, northern accents.

According to Eley (1995), the images and stereotypes of the ′traditional working class culture′ as they are presented in many films refer back to ′a historically specific formation of the period between the 1880s and the 1940s′. And… the north of England has been identified since the nineteenth century in the popular imagination as the “land of the working class.” (Rob Shields, 1991) and these films use the iconography of working class social realism – presumably because the image of ‘working class’ in the collective consciousness is just that!

Thomas De Zengotita defined representation by saying, “Almost everything we know about the world comes to us through some sort of media and this influences our view of the world and even our self-definition” (2005) and we need to go beyond this and note that representation of working class in film and on TV often uses tropes that we have seen before and they may well be shaped by earlier representations of working class life that the film-makers have seen in other films or, at least, in other texts. The 1960s working class sitcom, The Likely Lads, was set in Newcastle but filmed in London but the makers wanted to show back lanes, which are one of the visual signifiers of the working class industrial north. Rather than film the scene on location, however, they found the back lanes a few hundred yards from the studios in London…

Watching Made in Dagenham, we can see the workers leaving the factory on foot and riding bicycles. Where have we seen this image of working class life before? It may well be an accurate depiction of Dagenham in the late 1960s but the scene certainly reminds me of a similar one at the start of Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. Arthur Seaton’s checked shirt in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning would seem to have connotations of working class masculinity and Ken Barlow’s (factory working) brother wears one in the first episode of Coronation Street. Is this why Robert Carlyle wears one in the Full Monty? Is it a post-modern intertextual homage?

The issue of identity has moved on and theorists, like Blulmer and Katz and Hall and Morley have recognised that audiences are active consumers of the media. Gammon and Marshment (1998) stress the role of the audience in the construction of meaning from texts and suggest there is a range of interpretations offered by any text. Audience response to soaps, for example, is rich and varied, as befits active viewers See, for example, The Broadcasting Standards Commission to research audience attitude to the British Soap Opera in 2002, where even viewers placed in the ‘fanatic’ category understand the programme makers are creating dramas and not reflecting real life.
However, in terms of collective identity, you need to look at Gauntlett and other key theorists.

Foucault – Identity is a shifting, temporary construction.

Gary Giddens (1991) claims that mediated experiences make us reflect upon and
rethink our own self-narrative in relation to others: the self is not something we are born with, and it is not fixed. Instead, the self is reflexively made- thoughtfully constructed by the individual. We all choose a lifestyle.

Henry Jenkins (1992): We need to interact in order to form our identity - with other people – or with the media; this can involve partaking in an event (in reality, or virtually) with people with whom we feel affinity helps us to form collective identity.

David Gauntlett (2002) suggests that the media disseminates a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable forms of self-expression, gender, sexuality and lifestyle. At the same time, the public have their own robust set of diverse feelings on these issues. The media's suggestions may be seductive, but can never simply overpower contrary feelings in the audience. It seems appropriate to speak of a slow but engaged dialogue between media and media consumers. Neither the media nor the audience are powerful in themselves, but both have powerful arguments.

Media products provide numerous kinds of 'guidance' - in the myriad suggestions of ways of living which they imply. We lap up this material because the social construction of identity today is the knowing social construction of identity. Your life is your project. The media provides some of the tools which can be used in this work. Like many toolkits, it contains some good utensils and some useless ones; some that might give beauty to the project, and some that might spoil it. (People find different uses for different materials, too, so one person's 'bad' tool might be a gift to another.)

Gauntlett (2002): in contrast with the past - or the modern popular view of the past - we no longer get singular, straightforward messages about ideal types of male and female identities. Today, nothing about identity is clear-cut, and the contradictory messages of popular culture make the 'ideal' model for the self even more indistinct.

Note the way, in the age of web 2.0, that collective identity is also reflected in the use of websites, blogs etc that use these images of working class to create a community amongst fans e.g. http://eastenders-soaps.blogspot.com/; http://www.eastendersblog.com/; http://www.corrieblog.tv/ (currently running this story: “Tens of thousands of people living in Britain think Weatherfield actually exists according to a survey by Hotels.com.”), http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com/; http://mycorrie.com/). There are also the inevitable facebook pages: http://www.facebook.com/CoronationStreetBlog; and the soaps are, of course, on Twitter, officially and unofficially.

Greg Philo of the Glasgow Media Group notes that the audience does not exist as a silent mass with a collective identity, but as active, thinking, reflective, creative audiences who share cultural experiences in common – and this is surely all the more so when viewers can re-evaluate their relationship to the text by interacting with each other through conversation or through fan sites.

Is representation further mediated through critics? For instance, negative interpretation of the representation of working class life in, say, Billy Elliott, by middle class critics for not considering the importance of the role of women in the miners' strike - though I realise, the impact of such criticism on the actual working class (and most others) is negligible.

Making Monsters

2011-05-15T21:07:00.003+01:00

video platform
video management
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Monsters on a Microbudget

2011-05-15T15:16:00.003+01:00

Monsters: Fearless, Fearsome, Imperfect, Important
Jonathan Stromberg
Oct 29, 2010

The following review is partially adapted from a workshop I gave to film students at the State University of New York at Purchase College on 6 October 2010.

“Monsters”, the debut feature of writer/director Gareth Edwards, is, from the point of view of a spectator, an imperfect film. It is, however, from the point of view of a filmmaker, one of the most exciting releases I’ve seen this year. Edwards’s production reads like a map for young filmmakers, marking pitfalls with his struggles and showing a way forward with his successes. “Monsters” is one of the clearest case studies yet for the challenges—and advantages—of micro-budget filmmaking.

The ostensible auteur Edwards approached his first feature from his background in visual effects and documentary television. In some ways, this spelled destiny for the production style of “Monsters.” The narrative is basically theatrical, but the shooting style is strongly influenced by the production necessities of non-fiction television. For example, the film has no script per se. Edwards shot using scene outlines and necessary plot points but allowed his cast, Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy, to improvise freely within the scene. The apparent production doctrine was for Edwards, also the cinematographer, to shoot the scene multiple times from different angles to get broad coverage of every beat. The film in this way develops a signature somewhat different from more traditional narrative constructions. Edwards foregoes the “establishing wide then punch in for medium shots and close ups” archetype for something that ends up more like a multi-camera shoot. The angles in any particular scene are more varied, but also less predictable. In documentary television we—I work in non-fiction television as well—often shoot this way. In this way, a decision regarding the mode of production has significant impact on the film’s aesthetic, for better or worse, in a way that contrasts it to traditional productions.

The improvisation itself—by which I also mean the virtual lack of a script—is perhaps Edwards’s most obvious production choice, both because its results were so rewarding and so limiting. Production anecdotes in Edwards’s own press kit tell of his directorial inexperience and the minimal rehearsal before shooting. However, they also speak to his intuition as a filmmaker. Able and McNairy, who play strangers becoming romantically entwined in the crucible of alien invasion, were real-life lovers prior to and during production. Utilizing their emotional connection to enrich scenes that might otherwise have been dull or expository was an extraordinarily wise decision. To take the critical perspective, even if it were a gamble, Edwards was right to guess that the potential dramatic reward greatly outweighed risks of any subtextual disconnect with the narrative. On the other hand, scenes which do not leverage Able and McNairy’s existing relationship do feel dull and expository, particularly the interminable one-sided phone calls with off-screen personas. This is where Edwards was remiss in not providing a quality script. He abandoned his responsibility to the subtlety of exposition to the hamfistedness of McNairy’s instincts. Given that the story is carried entirely on the strength of the leads’ performances, the neglected script is a regrettable and unnecessary blemish.

The story overarching the narrative is unpolished as well. By the literary standards of genre, “Monsters” is bad science fiction. In my opinion, this was Edwards biggest mistake. I won’t be spoiling anything by saying that the monsters in “Monsters” don’t represent anything—though they nearly do—and are completely at odds with any kind of informed perspective on the science of astrobiology. This isn’t nitpicking. There’s a reason that most science fiction writers are scientists: the genre requires a specifically empirical approach to allegory with which Edwards is clearly uncomfortable. Instead, “Monsters” adopts the trappings of science fiction, without addressing them directly. In my view, this is the tragedy of “Monsters.” The dramatic scenes are so strong—they truly are—and the monsters are so superfluous, that the whole film as small as it is could have been re-conceived as an even smaller picture, with virtually no change in plot or production. This smaller film wouldn’t have indulged Edwards’s visual effects virtuosity, and perhaps he wouldn’t have been interested in making it, but it would have been a better film.

If writing and story and even directing aren’t Edwards’s strongest suits, his intuition and audacity as a producer is. Of the plethora of despicable filmmakers peddling their despicable $15,000 films (which, until seeing “Monsters” I had written off as either practically implausible or ethically irresponsible), Gareth Edwards stands head and shoulders above. “Monsters” takes the extreme micro-budget film out of the province of gimmick. For a film of such production value, it sports only two starring actors, supported by local Latino non-actors and amateurs. Edwards and his sound recordist were the only on-location crew. The four of them shot more or less alone for three weeks at real locations—in jungles, in villages, atop Mesoamerican pyramids. And unlike many of the other micro-budget charlatans, “Monsters” is a true independent film produced on a small advance from a small but dedicated studio and sold by specialty distributors. The circumstances of its production harken back to the New York Independent mode of the early nineties—without the support of the stock market boom. In this way, “Monsters” is anything but Hollywood fodder, like “Paranormal Activity” (2009), or amateur hour, like “Breaking Upwards” (2009). Unlike both these films, and the others they typify, Edwards made the film he knew he could make well, without compromise, and with integrity. That in itself should earn the respect of any post-millennial filmmaker. “Monsters” is a success in spite of itself because Edwards made a few crucially important production decisions and stuck to them: to write a film he knew he could produce properly, to trust the drama to his actors and cast actors he could trust, to shoot on location and pull the most value from each location, to shoot with the edit in mind and adapt the mode of production according to the aesthetic of the film. On the other hand, hiring an editor probably saved the movie and might easily have been the most expensive addition to the original $15,000 budget.

I don’t love “Monsters” as a film, but I did thoroughly enjoy despite its flaws. More importantly, it represents the ideal of responsible post-millennial filmmaking. As the global economy recovers over the next decade, hopefully the model “Monsters” represents will thrive. I have no doubt it will: it’s almost a necessity given current market realities. Good or bad, the ticket price is better spent on this film than almost any other commercial release this year—especially for filmmakers and cineastes.

http://cinespect.com/monsters-fearless-fearsome-imperfect-important/

See also http://www.slashfilm.com/how-gareth-edwards-shot-monsters-on-an-incredibly-low-budget/

Monsters - Production and Release

2011-04-04T18:13:00.004+01:00

Production The film was devised, storyboarded and directed by Gareth Edwards, who also worked as the visual effects artist. Allan Niblo and James Richardson of Vertigo Films work as producers on the production. The filming equipment cost approximately $15,000, with the budget coming in at under $500,000. The film was shot entirely on location: any settings featured in the film were real locations often used without permission asked in advance, and the extras were just people who happened to be there at the time. Edwards had the idea for the film while watching some fishermen struggling to haul in their net and imagining a monster. He had the idea to make a monster movie set "years after most other monster movies end, when people aren't running and screaming, but life is going on" and "where a giant, dead sea monster is considered completely normal." He pitched the idea to Vertigo Films, and they asked Edwards to watch a film called In Search of a Midnight Kiss which starred Scoot McNairy and had been made for $15,000. As the chemistry between Edwards' two characters was so important, he wanted a real couple, and luckily McNairy's then-girlfriend (and now wife) Whitney Able was an actress, and joined the project. The film was shot in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Texas in the US, over three weeks. For about 90% of the filming the crew comprised seven people transported in one van: Ian Maclagan (sound operator), Jim Spencer (line producer), Verity Oswin the Mexican 'fixer', Edwards, a driver, and Able and McNairy, the stars. As the low-budget production didn't run to a camera dolly, Edwards made do by sticking the camera out of the van window, cushioned on some bundled-up clothing. As most of the extras were non-actors who were persuaded to be in the film, their action was improvised. "As a result of all this random behaviour, the idea of scripting the film went out of the window. Instead I had a loose paragraph describing the scene with just the main points that had to be hit; how the actors carried this out was left up to them." Each night during the shooting period the editor Colin Goudie and his assistant Justin Hall would download the day's footage so the memory sticks could be cleared and ready for the next day's filming. Back in the UK, Edwards had over 100 hours of unique ad-libbed footage (rather than repeated takes of scripted scenes which would be very similar) to edit into a coherent film. Edwards did all the special effects himself using off-the-shelf Adobe software and Autodesk 3ds Max. The first assembly was over four hours long, and over eight months of editing was trimmed to 94 minutes. Once the film was locked, Edwards had five months to create all 250 visual effects shots, a process he undertook in his bedroom. "[I was] churning out about two shots a day, which was fine until I got to the first creature shot. Then suddenly two months went by and I still hadn't finished a single creature shot; it turned out to be the hardest part of the whole process." Due to time constraints, the sound effects had to be produced before the special effects were undertaken.

Release Monsters premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival, as part of the SX Fantastic screenings, on 13 March 2010. On 17 March, Magnet Releasing acquired the rights for the North American distribution. In May, the film was screened at the Cannes Film Market. Monsters had its UK premiere as part of the 64th Edinburgh International Film Festival, on 18 June 2010. The Los Angeles Film Festival also held two screenings, part of the Summer Showcase, on 23 and 26 June. The film's theatrical release took place in Russia on 30 September, distributed by Volgafilm. Magnolia Pictures released Monsters in US theatres on 29 October 2010. The Canadian theatrical release was on 5 November, after DFilms acquired the rights on 24 May 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_(2010_film

A New View on Monster Movies

2011-04-04T18:10:00.003+01:00

'Monsters' offers up a new view on classic giant monster movies

By Drew McWeeny - Magnolia picks up the SXSW midnight movie, and could have a hit on their hands

Tuesday
Mar 23, 2010 1:45 PM

Gareth Edwards is a very smart guy with a keen eye for composition, and I'm guessing when we look back at 2010 in film, his name will be one of the names that helps define the year.

"Monsters" played SXSW this year as part of the Fantastic Fest at midnight line-up, and with a title like that, it was easy for the festival to fill the theater every time they played the movie. Going into the film, though, I knew nothing about it aside from the title. Someone in line told me that they'd heard it was "the first mumblecore horror film," which sent a chill down my spine and not in a good way. I'm not a fan of mumblecore as a genre or even as a descriptive word. I think it's an excuse for people to make films that are damn close to anti-audience, like a dare. I love small-scale character drama, but there's a fine line between effective and personal and deadly dull whining. Having seen "Monsters," I can see why someone would describe the film that way, but I disagree. I think it sells short of what Edwards has accomplished, and I worry that it would scare off people who would end up really liking the movie.

Right now, there are a number of companies chasing the success of last year's "Paranormal Activity" and "District 9," realizing that the idea of what you can do on film and how much you can make certain films for has changed. Paramount's got a new division that wants to make ten movies for a total of a million dollars. I hope they take a look at "Monsters" and reach out to more people like Gareth Edwards, who has been working for a while in the FX community. Makes sense, because while there are some inventive and ambitious special effects in the film, there's a handmade feel to it all that is a big part of its charm. Edwards pretty much ran this all as a one-man show. He wrote and directed, he shot the film himself, and he did all of his own FX work, on a budget of $7000. This is what independent filmmaking in the 21st century is going to look like. The most impressive thing about that is how you can sit in the theater and never once question how much the film cost. It's a "real" movie. And thankfully, Edwards chose not to make a "found footage" movie, something which I'm personally very tired of, and a cheap solution to a budget issue. His film has a documentary feel to it that comes from how it was shot, but the camera isn't an actual character in the film.

Set several years after a space probe carrying samples of extraterrestrial life broke up during re-entry, scattering samples all across North and Central America, the film concerns a journalist who is asked by his publisher to track down the publisher's daughter and bring her home. The journalist, Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy), is determined to get into the most dangerous part of the infected zone so he can capture some images of the giant monsters in action, so the last thing he wants to do is babysit Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able), especially if that means leaving the place where the monsters are located. Edwards took his actors to Central America and shot his entire movie guerilla, using real people as much as possible, layering in the textures of the world, the details that sell the idea that alien invasion has become a way of life, all in post-production. It's a seamless world he's created, and the film has a lovely, authentic quality to it. Both McNairy and Able are low-key, never pushing the drama too hard, but selling a real sense that they are living these events.

I remember Quentin Tarantino at one of the many festivals he threw in Austin talking about how he wanted to make a movie set in Tokyo that was just a low-key love story that played out while Godzilla rampaged elsewhere in the city, a distant threat that never became front and center, using the giant monster as background during a human story. Well, Quentin, Gareth Edwards beat you to it. Ultimately, his movie is about these two people realizing that they've got a genuine connection and that they would rather spend a life of uncertainty together than continue to protect themselves and be alone. Which is not to say that there are no giant monsters in the film... there are, and they are genuinely freaky and alien. It's just that there's never the feeling that the movie is about the monsters or about the infected zone or even about the invasion of Earth. Edwards is far more interested in what's happening between these two people and what it is that has driven them to this place where they meet than he is in just throwing effects and sensation at you. It's a very controlled film, very intimate. Because so much of it is improvised, not every character thread adds up, but the big picture works.

Magnolia picked the movie up during SXSW, and with some careful nurturing and a smart campaign, this could be a real break-out hit for them. And if nothing else, it's a fascinating look at just how much it's possible to do with limited resources, a miniscule crew, and boundless ambition.

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-captured/posts/sxsw-monsters-offers-up-a-new-view-on-classic-giant-monster-movies

Monsters - Publicity

2011-04-04T17:24:00.005+01:00

Check out http://www.monstersfilm.com/

Reviews

Monsters received generally positive reviews from critics, with the film garnering a 71% "fresh", or 6.6/10 rating, on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes with the site's consensus stating, "It doesn't quite live up to its intriguing premise, but Monsters is a surprising blend of alien-invasion tropes, political themes, and relationship drama." http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monsters-2010/

Roger Ebert awarded the film three and a half out of four stars and said "Monsters holds our attention ever more deeply as we realize it's not a casual exploitation picture." http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101117/REVIEWS/101119967

The film ranked #3 on Moviefone's Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies of 2010 list. http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/12/28/top-10-sci-fi-movies-of-2010/

Filmmaker Kevin Smith is a fan of the film, saying on his Podcast Hollywood Babble-On "It will appeal to everything about the child in you that used to like the Four o'clock movie."

Accolades

Monsters was nominated for six British Independent Film Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor,[23] and eventually won the Best Director, Best Technical Achievement, and Best Achievement in Production awards. At the 2011 BAFTA's Monsters was nominated for Outstanding Debut by a British Director, but ultimately lost to Four Lions.

Marketing

In the weeks leading up to the UK release date of 3 December 2010 a marketing campaign using social network Foursquare was announced. Vue Entertainment and Cineworld Cinemas set up 'infected locations' which gave users access to exclusive Monsters content and the chance to win random on-the-spot prizes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_(2010_film)

Monsters - Official Trailer 2

2011-04-04T17:21:00.001+01:00

Monsters - Official Trailer

2011-04-04T17:17:00.001+01:00

Development of the Action Adventure Film

2011-04-01T10:41:00.002+01:00

Action adventure

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The simplified version; largely stolen from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_film )

Representation of the Working Class in UK Soaps III

2011-03-30T15:29:00.001+01:00

The brainboxes

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Representation of the Working Class in UK Soaps II

2011-03-30T15:27:00.001+01:00

ce lr ch

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Representation of the Working Class in UK Soaps

2011-03-30T15:16:00.001+01:00

Emily, alysha, charlotte soap working class

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Sixth Form Media Studies – Collecting Audience Research

2011-03-28T12:56:00.000+01:00

On the afternoon of Monday 11th April, we are holding a special event to ensure that you have every opportunity to complete your audience research in time for the Easter holidays. Unfortunately this clashes with a sociology trip therefore some of you will need to find other opportunities to a) distribute questionnaires b) talk to focus groups. However you will be able to make full use of any footage collected by the group as you may choose to make a short video of the event to post on your blog. This helps to satisfy the multi-media challenge of creating a blog

What is Audience Research
· Every media producer wants to know to what extent their media product has satisfied his or her target audience. Often if it fails to do so the text is modified to accommodate (e.g. endings of films can sometimes be changed)
· You should aim to have your product virtually completed no later than Monday 11th April so you can collect feedback!!!!!
· You will work collaboratively throughout the afternoon with Year 13 to give constructive feedback on their work AND in return they will give you feedback
· Feedback will take many forms: a) open and closed questionnaires b) focus groups interviews c) one-to-one interviews d) producing your own pieces to camera to outline what you’ve learned from the process of audience research
· Those students aspiring towards A and B grades would also be expected to comment on the effectiveness of the research method e.g. does one particular research method give you clearer feedback than another?

Reminder of Key Aims:
1. BY APRIL 11TH -To be as far down the line in producing the final drafts of your music magazine – with plenty of evidence of drafts to show PROGRESS AND PROCESS!!!
2. To begin preparing now for AUDIENCE RESEARCH which forms one quarter of your evaluation – the collection of all your data will happen on 11th April
3. Easter holidays should be spent a) modifying your print projects b) creating your responses to these key questions:
· In what ways doe your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products
· How are social groups represented in your media product?
· Define your target audience.
· How does your product attract / address your target audience?
· Discuss your use of digital technology to create an authentic product
· Comment on your progress in terms of skills from your engagement in preliminary work through to your completion of the AS practical

Other Key Points
· Where possible you should avoid a standard essay response and present visual materials to support your evaluation e.g. pie charts and graphs to quantify audience response
· Begin collecting research from the Internet with regards to the magazine industry e.g. EMAP (We will provide you with a handout to support this area of your research)
· Begin collecting your ideas for your evaluation NOW but make sure you clearly signpost the above questions as part of your EVALUATION if you begin to write up relevant materials on your blog
· You MUST be in the position by the time you leave for Easter where you have only MINOR CHANGES to apply to your practical work so you can focus on your evaluation AND REVISION FOR YOUR RESIT
· Ryan, Tanya, Shaun and Olivia will be able to concentrate on a) revision for their other subjects b) begin to think about the A” practical with reference to MOVING IMAGE
· Please note that although the summer term is always very busy after the exam season there is a lull and although this can be great we need to use our time wisely to a) have some fun b) really deepen our knowledge / learn new skills
· We’re looking into a) visiting Bradford MOMI for a day trip and b) setting up a MOVING IMAGE PROJECT to get you outside with the cameras

Digital Technology and Creativity

2011-03-16T12:21:00.000Z

Question 1a – Reflecting upon A1 and A2 projects with reference to:

Digital technology and creativity

Your answer should be driven by SKILLS. You must write about A1 and A2. You must repeatedly use the terms “digital technology” and “creativity”.

SKILL 1: BLOGGING
A1 – introduction to blogging through Blogspot. Must mention pro-sumerism - (the notion that everyone is creating their own media) - and global potential of Internet.

Research and planning emerged as a media product in itself.

Could reflect that A1 blog was not as creative – although point out what you did achieve creatively. Arguably in A1 you did not fully realise multi media aspects.

In contrast describe and evaluate how creative in comparison you were with your A2 blog. Detail multi media aspects of your work and how this allowed you to creatively display your progress. Make sure you point out that A2 blogs detailed both PROGRESS and PROCESS. It emerged as a LEARNING TOOL and allowed you to share your experiences on a GLOBAL PLATFORM.

Did you receive INTERNATIONAL FEEDBACK?

Some members of our group had their work placed on a different site(s). This brings up interesting points about ownership and control. In theory a consumer can take ownership of your product and recreate it with their own creative input. This gives massive creative potential but is also arguably dangerous as increasingly how do we authenticate media products?

Make sure you very specifically outline all the creative choices you made in creating you’re A2 blog. REMINDER: The term PROSUMERSIM is key.

Skill 2: Photography

Make reference to the creative skills you’ve learned in using a digital camera – ( WHICH MODEL OF CAMERA DID YOU USE?????) - effectively to achieve a highly professional end product. Point out that the technology allows a potentially great result although ultimately it is the photographer who captures the image. Control of lighting and framing are MAN-MADE therefore to assume that the camera does all the work is an oversimplification of the creative process.

Discuss with specific reference to the most creative photographs and outline how learning progressed from A1 to A2. You can use semiological terms (denotation and connotation) to discuss meaning. Try to include the idea that good photography can make or break a project. A badly taken photograph cannot be completely rescued by Photoshop. Do you have evidence of any creativity in using Photoshop OR when shooting your film?

Skill 3: Photoshop
An integral part of of A1 and A2 are the ancillary tasks. Photoshop is an industry standard piece of software and requires considerable skill. You are all very skilful in using Photoshop but your answer would benefit from a detailed discussion of some of the more complex processes you engaged in to achieve an authentic end product. Look at the example below:

Photoshopping has emerged in the media industry as a synonym for airbrushing. In our image-obsessed world this software is ubiquitous in engineering culturally specific images of perfection. With reference to my own work, and particularly the front cover of my music magazine, I noticed from my original image that my model’s face reflected a very uneven skin tone. In using the clone stamp tool I was able to copy the pixels from another part of the face and through a rigorous approach create a much more even colour balance. Finally my application of a filter to soften the pixels allowed further blending…………

Skill 4: Shooting film
You need to make specific reference to the technical skills you learned when shooting film. You should comment on framing, positioning, the technical preparation of specific shoots using digital equipment. E.g. steadycam, tripod ……

You can discuss the creative choices you made whilst filming and possibly compare a good take with a bad one. Remember to use the term CREATIVITY and build in references to decision making.

Skill 5: Editing
Post production is an essential component of the production process and you will have made many creative choices in order to construct a meaningful narrative – (remember “narrative” is different to the term “story” dealing much more specifically with the structuring and sequencing of the story). Again try to approach this wearing your “problem –solving hat”. Can you outline the value of different versions of digital editing e.g. IMovie as opposed to Final Cut Pro? What value does Final Cut add?

Again I would make the point that professional editing software cannot correct badly shot film in the same way that a poor photograph cannot be magically transformed using Photoshop. Are there any specific edits that were more creative than others? Can you give a sense of your journey in terms of learning and progress in technical skill?

Conclusion: Important – don’t neglect this. Think of the graph!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Overall what does digital technology allow in terms of creativity?!?????? Digital technology cannot substitute raw skill and creative talent but it can facilitate. How have YOU as an individual demonstrated your creativity across A1 and A2 (show a sense of progression). How has digital technology helped you on this journey? Finally, are there any disadvantages to using digital software?

Collective Identity

2011-02-24T17:23:00.001Z

Collective identity

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Denotation, Connotation and Myth

2011-02-14T19:57:00.001Z

Denotation, Connotation, Myth, on Prezi

Wesley Rykalski
12 November 2010

Genre Theory

2011-02-14T15:29:00.001Z

Genre theory

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Music Magazine Analysis

2011-02-14T14:24:00.000Z

Music Magazine Analysis

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Y12 HOMEWORK

2011-02-03T16:25:00.001Z

Deadline for next Thursday (10th Feb)– The Blog

Section 1: The Introduction

· Overview of what makes a good photograph. Why is it critical for a successful print project? Evidence of a bad photograph and a good photograph – label it
· Chart what you have learned about layout. Why are the tags important in creating an IDEOLOGY for your TARGET AUDIENCE
· Present evidence of 3 drafts and justify changes – even if they are minor
· Summarise what principles you learned from this exercise – you can discuss your learning of key tools within Photoshop BUT make sure photography and layout are central to your discussion

Deadline for week on Thursday (17th Feb)

Section 2: The Music Magazine

· Discuss your chosen sub -genre and begin profiling examples
· Think about target audience – create a character profile. Literally create an imaginary person (with a picture) who will buy your product. List their consumption habits. Where do they shop, what do they wear, what do they go on holiday? You could produce up to three character profiles to demonstrate the RANGE OF YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE!!!!
· What are the key conventions of your sub-genre in terms of:
a) Photography
b) Ideology

You should now begin compiling specific evidence for the three components of your project:

1. Front page
2. Contents page
3. Feature Article

Remember to refer to multiple examples. Also you will get extra marks if your feature INSTITUTIONAL INFO – who publishes it? Distribution stats? Market share?

Every media product has a rival. WHO ARE YOU COMPETING AGAINST???????? You should make references to your rival when evaluating how your product is emerging.

Viral Marketing

2010-12-31T17:39:00.002Z

Something you might find useful, though it's not about a British movie. Of course, you could argue that viral campaigns are only effective when picked up by the wider media, which then point people in the direction of the viral campaign...

Viral marketing: how film fans have caught the bug
More than a trailer, director Neill Blomkamp's new video leads fans on a digital treasure hunt for clues about his next movie. It's a game increasing numbers of film-makers are playing

When South African film-maker Neill Blomkamp's strange new short went viral last month it prompted many questions: is this a clue to Blomkamp's mooted District 9 sequel? Or his forthcoming new sci-fi project Elysium? And is that a pig or a cat, or – gulp – a little bit of both? It said as much about contemporary movie marketing as it did about the director's creativity.

Social networking encourages a see-and-then-share habit for moviegoers, and it's taken a step further this year – just observe the excitement and commercial reward generated by this year's viral campaigns for Inception and Tron. Yet despite the commercial motivation, most fans appear to be enjoying the shift. Viral movie marketing encourages engagement with cinema, wider conversation and expands the worlds of movies people love. In the case of Blomkamp's new video, far from merely being a trailer for a forthcoming project, the short might be seen as a starting point for a digital egg hunt.

If you've managed to come out unscathed after sitting through the video's impressively tense minute-long running time, you'll notice that the creature in Blomkamp's video is stamped AMG Heartland. Cue film fans doing some digging and discovering this is a phrase trademarked to communications company Sable, which suggests more videos will follow over the coming months.
Most movie fans enjoy the way things are now, but there's some who really enjoy it – in fact, there's a growing subculture of movie fans for whom this hunt for information is as exciting as the films themselves. Over at Movieviral.com, there's a website full of people picking through the detritus of the web and correlating clues with existing release schedules – asking themselves and each other, what does it all mean? Their forum asks if this website provides clues to Battle: Los Angeles, or is just the musings of a UFO enthusiast. It doesn't really matter which – what's most important is getting excited about the movie.

Yet some of the website's subscribers have certainly found more to enjoy in movies than mere speculation – it was Movieviral.com forum users who first cracked the code to ijustwanttobeperfect.com, the website for Darren Aronofsky's forthcoming psychological horror Black Swan, discovering, after a tipoff from the lead character's @theswanqueen twitter account, that if you typed the name of the film's villain Rothbart on the site, you were rewarded with access to view unseen footage from the movie.

Sci-fi and horror are the perfect subject matter for this kind of fan engagement – after all, what's scarier than what you don't know? – and when they're not trying to deduce whether a strange alien autopsy video entitled Apollo 20 has any relation to the forthcoming Apollo 18 movie, they're trying to crack the DOS-style setup of thescariestthingieversaw.com, a website reporting to provide access to the home computer of D Morris, a character from JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg's forthcoming Super 8. That film's not out until June 2011, they've got plenty of time.

But what is perhaps most exciting to this community is that the internet provides more clues about forthcoming movies than the release schedules. Nobody really knows what theclearpill.com means, other than suggesting that a Bradley Cooper movie about a wonder drug called Limitless appears to be in the works. Likewise the potential resurrection of the Mortal Kombat franchise when a video entitled Mortal Kombat Rebirth was put on YouTube this summer. Fans weren't given any explanation as to whether this was a new shonky beat 'em up video game, or another shonky movie based on the shonky beat 'em up game – but three million users debating which one it is can't be bad for business.

Of course, there is a school of thought that wishes things remained as they always were, that digging around and hunting for clues spoils the magic of cinema, like asking a magician to reveal the secrets of his tricks. Another thinks fans should know better than to fall for smart marketing, that they're just feeding the machine and wasting their lives searching for information that will be revealed to them in due course.

Both schools are entitled to their views, yet as they sit down to watch their summer blockbusters next year, inquisitive fans such as myself will be even more exited, knowing we've been part of the conversation for longer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/dec/17/viral-marketing-film-fans?INTCMP=SRCH

The Social Realist Roots of British Soaps

2010-12-15T13:13:00.009Z

The social realist roots of soaps

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GCSE Horror Posters III

2010-12-05T22:32:00.004Z

Josh Dodds

Beth Hunter

Michael Watson

Jessica Dos Santos

Lauren Tearney

Get Ahead OCR Media

2010-12-05T21:25:00.001Z

http://getaheadocrmedia.blogspot.com/

The exam board's own blog with loads of good information and ideas for your own own blogs and how to achieve better grades...

Essay titles

2010-12-05T21:12:00.002Z

Explore the exhibition issues faced by a media industry you have studied

Explore some of the ways in which new technologies have had an
impact on a media industry you have studied.

Explore the funding issues faced by the media industry you have studied

Explore the issues raised by the institution’s need to target specific audiences with a media industry you have studied

You must try to refer to examples from outside your particular case study (which is Slumdog Millionaire) - so... Amber, Working Title, Sony/Columbia and an example of its recent product, Paranormal Activity.

Most of this stuff is on the blog, a few pages back.

Explore the funding issues faced by the media industry you have studied

2010-12-05T21:03:00.002Z

UK and the USA - In the practice of Hollywood and other forms of industrial cinema, the phases of production, distribution and exhibition operate most effectively when 'vertically integrated', where the three stages are seen as part of the same larger process, under the control of one company. In the UK, distribution is very much focused on marketing and sustaining a global product in local markets.
British cinema had a considerable advantage over European cinema in that the American market is huge and English is the national language. Many people across the world speak English, so the potential audience for British film is huge.

However, there is a downside: American cinema has the same advantage and on top of this, American studios have enormous capital at their disposal. They produce more films, both of the expensive, mass-appeal kind, as well as the more risky films with an independent feel. One success will pay for approximately nine failures at the box office. While British cinema does experience boom years when our films and film-makers ate feted throughout the world, we are generally consuming an increasingly large diet of American films, from the excellent to the awful and everything in between. On top of this, because of the popularity of American films in the UK, the distribution of British films into our cinemas and of British DVDs into shops is dominated by US companies, who are obviously going to put their resources into pushing their own products.

Distribution 50% of money spent on a film often goes on promotion. Film is a business like any other; it doesn’t rely on waiting and listening to audience response before delivering the product; it relies on knowing which part of the world and the media need its products and will pay for them. Does market forces competition give the consumer more power and choice and, therefore, influence, what’s made OR does it convince us that what we want is being made for us? Do millions go to see The Dark Knight when it opens because it’s a great film or because it’s been well-marketed? Or both?

Film distribution = everything that happens between the film being made and it being exhibited, whether in a cinema, on DVD, TV, the internet or anywhere else. Promotion involves above the line advertising, such as posters, trailers, billboards and spin-offs and promotional partners. It also involves related merchandising and below the line publicity which is not paid for but generates mutual interest. For example, an interview with a star in a newspaper or reviews in a magazine. Not all films are treated equally. Bigger companies have more financial muscle to promote their product and the big companies who control much of the industry, control not only the distribution of their own products, but that of others.

Five major companies dominate the UK film industry: United International Pictures, Warner Brothers, Buena Vista, Twentieth Century Fox and Sony. Nine out of every ten films shown in the UK are viewed as a result of these distributors and in most cases are linked to the Hollywood production companies who make the films. They deal with exhibitors who are no longer owned by the same Hollywood companies but, to make a profit, prioritise Hollywood films over others. Blockbuster films are often distributed via blanket release, so even if a small independent UK company gets its product into cinemas, it’s facing stiff, well-marketed competition from films that often take on the status of an event. Half the films released in Britain do not get shown around the whole country.

In the independent film sector, vertical integration does not operate so commonly. Producers tend not to have long-term economic links with distributors, who likewise have no formal connections with exhibitors. Here, as the pig-in-the-middle, distribution is necessarily a collaborative process, requiring the materials and rights of the producer and the cooperation of the exhibitor to promote and show the film in the best way possible. In this sector, distribution can be divided into three stages - licensing, marketing and logistics.

Although British film industry is doing relatively well and profits from British films worldwide are up 50% from 10 years ago, funding remains a perennial problem.

Small companies like Amber Film and Photography Collective have smaller budgets – shooting costs and their expectations of distribution are low and their working methods are necessarily low key (e.g. using digital video cameras and a non-professional cast) . They don’t work on a project basis. For Shooting Magpies (2005), there was a £17,000 development grant from Channel 4 and £40,000 from Northern Film & Media. Some of the work was supported by taking on a commercial project for Tyne & Wear Museums and some of the revenue money from Northern Rock Foundation into it (say £40,000 of £100,000). Over a three year period, they raised/spent maybe £100,000 to £120,000 on the film. At the same time, there were the Coalfield Stories photography projects, which, while they all delivered their own exhibitions/videos etc, contributed significantly to the research for the film. Amber raised around £170,000 for Coalfield Stories between 1999 and 2005.

Other companies like Working Title look for a global/wider distribution and exhibition – have found success in using an American actor and establishing its own stars like High Grant; now co-owned by Unversal/Vivendi, so they have American/European money behind their productions which can help promote them. Check your notes on the company or Google it!

Funding Slumdog Millionaire (2008): Film 4, the Channel Four film unit has only 11 staff and a budget of £10m; Tessa Ross had to find partners to help fund Slumdog. Key decision – took the film to head of Celador Films (an independent production company formed in 1983. It has produced a number of popular light entertainment shows but is probably best known for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) – Christian Coulson. Experienced producer with several important credits e.g. Dirty Pretty Things (2002), and The Descent (2005). More than that, Celador International owned the rights to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Though Swarup (author of Q&A) had been inspired by the cheating scandal in millionaire, he had used a fictional quiz in the book. Ross wanted the rights to use Millionaire – the film would be an advert for the quiz worldwide – excellent example of cross promotion and synergy – people who are familiar with the quiz (and it is known worldwide) may be more likely to se the film; people who see the film may be more likely to watch the quiz. Once Celador produce the film there will be no payments to an external agency for the rights of Millionaire. Celador International was breaking up but Coulson ensured Film 4 would get the rights. The deal put in a small amount in equity and a TV rights payment. Celador Films then added £8m for the production budget with the assistance of a UK tax credit.

British films can apply for tax credit if they pass the UK Film Council’s definition of ‘British’. This has fairly strict criteria, based on cultural content, cultural contribution, cultural hubs and cultural practitioners and films have to score at least 16 points out of a possible 31 to pass. On cultural content it may get 5 or 6 – the subject matter has some British cultural connection and the dialogue is mainly in English; cultural contribution – it uses British creativity; cultural hubs – although it was filmed abroad there was post-production work in the UK , cultural practitioners – most cast and crew are Indian, but key figures are British. Be lucky if you could award it 12 or 13 points. However, it is believed it passed on the strength of a letter of support written by Christian Coulson, in which he argued the film was a meaningful contribution to British culture. Film4 came in with the UK TV licence and a small equity position, the UK government provided a tax credit ('I wrote an essay to the Film Council on why it was a meaningful contribution to British culture,' he says with a smile), while Celador would majority finance the £8m production using its own funding capability.
Still small budget – average Hollywood film costs about £30m. A blockbuster can cost much more; the new Star Trek movie cost $150 million!

Coulson, as producer started preparing the film even without any overseas distribution deals in place. Six months later, March 2007 – Celador and Film 4 offered the film to Danny Boyle who read the script and accepted it. The presence of Boyle (Trainspotting (1996), The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007)) and writer Simon Beaufoy (scripter of the most successful UK movie up to that point (The Full Monty) would be a pull factor for distributors.

At the point where the casting was complete, the movie was greenlit and Colson went with the script to distributors, asking for the entire budget on a negative pickup basis for worldwide rights. The major US studios generally have their own distribution offices in all the major territories. By contrast, independent producers have to sell their films to different distributors in each territory. Eventually Celador decided to pre-sell North America separately from an international deal. In the end the Warner Independent Pictures (WIP)/Pathe International combination put down minimum guarantees that justified making the film for the price they wanted.

Financing the film with Celador/Film4 equity, Colson believes, enabled Boyle to make the film that is so beloved today. 'The price would have been forced down if we'd made it for a studio,' he says, 'so we had the right amount of time to shoot it. We were also in a creative protective bubble, if you like. The script read tough - there were torture scenes and children having their eyes poked out. I am sure we would have been asked to tone that stuff down significantly.'

The film wasn't cheap for WIP and Pathe.It was budgeted at around $13m and the Warner slice alone was $5m. One issue that delayed the WIP contract was the Hindi dialogue. If the film ended up containing a certain amount of foreign dialogue, it would fail to meet criteria for the studio's TV output deals. It has been claimed that in order to secure financial aid from Warners, the film-makers claimed the amount of Hindi dialogue was significantly less than the actual amount of close to a third!

The film was shot from November 5 2007 through to February 12 2008, by which time Pathe International had already started preselling rights at Berlin. Based on what Colson says was a 'fantastic promo reel', Pathe sold 'loads more' territories in Cannes.

But just before Cannes, the call came through to the production that Warner Bros was preparing to shut down Warner Independent Pictures. Scheduling issues made it 'impossible' for Warner Bros to handle the release that calendar year. However, they went into partnership with Fox Searchlight, which handled marketing and distribution of the film in North America.

There was a real danger the film would only be released on DVD in the USA – which would have been disastrous to its commercial aims. The choice to show the film to Fox Searchlight was no surprise to anyone. Boyle had a long history with the Fox specialised label and its president Peter Rice had even overseen his big Fox production The Beach not to mention distributing 28 Days Later and Sunshine. Fortunately for Boyle and Colson, Searchlight didn't have an awards hopeful for late 2008 and Slumdog came at the perfect time.

Fox Searchlight stumped up $2.5m for the US distribution rights to the film and Warner Bros remained a financial partner. 'Warner Bros did the right thing by this film,' says Colson. 'But it came just in the nick of time. We had invitations from Telluride and Toronto [film festivals] and we closed the deal with Fox a day before Toronto started.'

Ironically, despite the worldwide success of Slumdog, Channel 4, on which Film4 depends for its funding, recently admitted it was facing a £150m shortfall. There are hopes that a strong showing at the Oscars will send a message to the British government that Film4 is worth protecting as a world-class part of the channel's public service broadcasting remit. On the face of it, times couldn't be better for British film - with Slumdog Millionaire's awards success so far adding to a huge growth in audiences. Cinema admissions are bucking the downturn trend- the UK box office had the strongest January performance for five years with takings of £100m, while total admissions rose 7.7% year on year.

At least three major Hollywood productions start shooting in the UK this year - Gulliver's Travels, Nottingham, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - as well as Film4's post-Slumdog projects such as Peter Jackson's and DreamWorks's film of The Lovely Bones and Sam Taylor Wood's Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy.

Behind the scenes, however, there are problems - TV and DVD revenues have fallen, the credit crunch has stopped British banks lending to indie producers, and the consequent delays are threatening to wipe out indie productions before they've even started. There are those who fear a more fundamental threat in 2009 - that a possible merger between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide could permanently damage both BBC Films and Film4. If it does, Slumdog, In Bruges and Revolutionary Road could be the last of their kind.

Tessa Ross, head of Film 4 has a relatively limited budget of £8-£10m a year for Film4's entire output. Typically, independent producers looking to make £4-5m movies will use public money to develop projects, then take the script and proposal to film festivals in the US, Cannes and Berlin to secure distribution agreements. Each distribution contract acts as collateral in securing bank loans to start production. Adam Kulick, a partner at Goldcrest, warns that the credit crunch means those loans have dried up. "Producers are having real trouble starting productions and they survive on production fees - which means some may go out of business in the downturn," Kulick explains. "At the same time, those distribution agreements they can secure are worth less this year as overseas markets struggle with their own recessions.”

Only a few companies, with Working Title the biggest, operate like commercial studios – and they are backed – and part-owned by Universal/Vivendi. Kulick, however, does praise the film-financing tax break that the government launched two years ago. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has got a very good reputation in the industry - here and abroad - what money we do have tends to end up in the best films.

The other plus for UK film is that the fall in the value of sterling is making the UK a very attractive place for Hollywood studios to film. "The UK's talent and creative base is very strong," says David Kosse, president of Universal Pictures International, who is preparing to release Richard Curtis's new Working Title movie The Boat That Rocked, in April. "Couple that with the weakness of the pound and that's attracting strong inward investment from the US. Some of last year's biggest pictures - such as The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! - were shot in the UK so Pinewood and Shepperton [studios] are feeling pretty optimistic after a difficult few years. However, he added, "You can't have actors, craftspeople and camera crews who only work on a couple of big pictures a year - they need to be working all the time to make sure the creative base remains strong."

Which brings the argument back to Film4. Sadly, Oscar recognition is unlikely to secure much more cash for the unit. Slumdog is highly profitable - having returned four times its initial costs - but only a small proportion of this profit will return to C4. For Ross, however, the profit isn't the main point.

BFI and the future of British film-making

2010-12-05T21:00:00.002Z

More Harry Potter or another Another Year? The BFI must decide
Taking over from the UK Film Council will see a clash between commerce, Hollywood and commitments to UK heritage and art

In his speech outlining the future of the UK film industry, culture minister Ed Vaizey made an interesting point about the relationship between British film-making and Hollywood. In the same breath, Vaizey praised Tamara Drewe, Made in Dagenham and the Harry Potter films as signs of the British film industry's current and continuing success. He went on to say:

Some people think there are two film industries in this country – the US film industry, and the UK film industry – and that somehow one side's success is dependent on the other side's failure. I do not share that view. I believe that the two industries are two sides of the same coin … We benefit massively from Hollywood's investment in this country.

The plans he went on to outline reflected this assumption. The duties of the UK Film Council, it turns out, have been handed over to a beefed-up British Film Institute, which will have an even greater pot of lottery funds to distribute than its predecessor, although with a significantly reduced infrastructure. The rationale for abandoning the UK Film Council was, in part, that it supposedly spent too much on operating costs (although the UKFC vehemently disputes this). One can presume that the BFI will have to manage its budgets, and work with film-makers, at a significantly discounted rate.

In many ways, it's an uncontroversial move, which reinforces the status quo, rather than radically breaking with it. The BFI simply replaces the UK Film Council as a one-stop shop for film investment. The decision to keep film funding centralised, rather than establishing a handful of separate bodies with different remits, will help to keep costs down, although it does mean that film-makers have to be on good terms with the BFI in order to qualify for resources. If they are not, for whatever reason, then there's not really anywhere else to go. The decision also makes one wonder whether it might have been cheaper to simply reform the UK Film Council.

So, it remains to be seen how the BFI will deal with this new mandate. Vaizey told us to expect announcements about significant structural changes very soon, and the BFI faces a substantial challenge. Throughout its history, it has been a successful force for disseminating and educating the public about the value of movies and screen heritage. When it has funded film projects in the past, it has tended to stick to its mandate by focusing on more commercially obscure but artistically worthwhile projects. By contrast, the UK Film Council was established to ensure that the UK film industry became more substantial and sustainable in terms of its value to the UK economy. It had a cultural mandate, but it was ultimately a commercial institution.

Despite some missteps, it achieved notable success in this regard. Relatively few UK Film Council-funded films have been breakout hits, but many more were small-budget affairs which likely recouped their costs, and the UK Film Council's hit-to-flop ratio was probably no worse than the average Hollywood studio. After all, film-making is an enormously risky business, because it is almost impossible to fully anticipate audience preference and demands. The great screenwriter William Goldman, described this problem neatly in his much-quoted maxim, that, in Hollywood, "nobody knows anything". Crucially, no one knows for sure what audiences want to see, and this is as true of the British market as it is of America. Therefore, the challenge for the BFI will be to find some way of dealing with an inherently uncertain and relatively unpredictable market.

One strategy is to fund very small films and expect small returns. Another is to contribute to the funding of bigger British films, assuming a minor role, but assisting with administration. The BFI clearly has some solid commercial instincts. It operates a great facility on the South Bank, including an extremely successful Imax cinema. But now it needs to find a way of balancing its cultural and education remit with the financial realities of film production, while keeping operating costs low.

However, it seems to me that the real focus of Vaizey's interest is revealed in the suggestion that visiting Hollywood productions, and American investment, has really driven the growth of film-related industry in Britain. Tax breaks for overseas production will continue, and Vaizey went out of his way to declare the need for further American investment. Some will no doubt see this as a mistake, or as confirmation that the coalition is pursuing the neoliberal policy of ensuring that Britain remains little more than a production base for companies whose revenues ultimately migrate overseas (as occurred with so much British manufacturing in the 1970s and 80s). However, Vaizey is right that many ostensibly American productions do bring work to Britain, and are culturally British in some sense. I argued last week that the success of the Harry Potter films clearly indicates that British subjects are eminently suitable for highly budgeted, commercially successful blockbusters. Next week, Michael Apted's new Narnia film is likely to generate substantial revenues across the world too (even if it does not quite match the stratospheric profits of the latest Potter film). The newly minted BFI probably will not want to dip its toe in the choppy waters of blockbuster film production, so Hollywood does still have a role to play in supporting a certain kind of nominally British film. But it must be possible for British film-makers to successfully address regular British moviegoers – not the minority audiences attracted to a movie like Fish Tank or Another Year, but the masses, the sort of people who turn out in droves for Harry Potter. The BFI now needs to build upon the work of the UK Film Council, and figure out what role it wants future British films to play in the lives of British people.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/nov/30/bfi-uk-film-council-takeover?intcmp=239

BFI takes over from the UK Film Council

2010-12-05T20:52:00.003Z

British Film Institute to take over from UK Film CouncilBFI will distribute lottery money to film-makers, the culture minister Ed Vaizey announces

Mark Brown, Arts correspondent
guardian.co.uk
Monday 29 November 2010 19.22 GMT

The culture minister Ed Vaizey, who announced the BFI's new role today. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex Features The British Film Institute will distribute lottery money to film-makers from next year, ministers announced today, ending – they hope – an acrimonious row that even prompted Clint Eastwood to write a concerned letter to the chancellor.

The government revealed its plan to abolish the 10-year-old UK Film Council in July. Even those who sympathised with the decision criticised the lack of a plan for who would take over.

Today the culture minister, Ed Vaizey, tried to alleviate those worries by announcing the BFI would take on most of the UKFC's functions apart from the task of encouraging inward investment, which would be in the hands of Film London.

Vaizey said the BFI would have to "change fundamentally" to be "more able to realise an exciting vision of a coherent, joined-up film industry".

It will be responsible not only for heritage and education, but for helping the production, exhibition and distribution of new British films.

In a speech at Bafta's headquarters in London, Vaizey said the intention was to build on the already considerable achievements of the British film industry. "Despite the success, we cannot be complacent," he said. "The goal of a sustainable, independent British film industry remains as elusive as ever."

The BFI immediately announced a rise in the money available for new films in the coming year from £15m to £18m, made possible by the cut in overhead costs because of the film council's abolition.

More than a year ago the Labour government planned to merge the BFI with the film council, with the BFI as junior partner. Today's announcement, a merger in all but name, puts the BFI in charge.

Its chairman, Greg Dyke, said: "It makes sense for there to be a single voice for film in this country - and that's going to be us." He added: "We can certainly do it significantly cheaper ... how much cheaper, we don't know yet. The UK Film Council carried quite a large overhead."

There are still lots of questions. How much bigger will the BFI have to become? How much more money will it get? How many film council staff will transfer? Vaizey said he expected a detailed transfer plan to be sorted in the new year.

He reaffirmed that lottery funding for film would rise from £27m to more than £40m by 2014 and said there were no plans to change the tax credit scheme which has encouraged Hollywood studios to make films in the UK.

Vaizey praised Channel 4 and the BBC for its investment in film-making but said he could not understand why Sky did not make films. "As one of the country's most innovative broadcasters, they would bring a new dynamic force to the table that would lift everybody's game."

The job of attracting foreign – principally Hollywood – studios to Britain will go to Film London, but Vaizey stressed that it would be working for the whole of the UK, not just the capital.

The announcements were generally welcomed by the industry. Film producer David Parfitt, incoming chairman of Film London, said: "The key thing for us is that the money is still there and there is a promise to increase it and also a guarantee of the long-term future of the tax credit.

"Those are the things that the industry really wanted to hear."

There was a more understandably downbeat response from the UKFC as it continues to help out in its own abolition. Tim Cagney, managing director, said: "We are relieved that, after over four months of uncertainty, the government has made up its mind on where public support for UK film will sit. There are still many unresolved issues so, to benefit the industry and to protect our staff, we will continue to work with the relevant organisations on a smooth handover of film functions and expertise."

Privately, ministers acknowledge that the film council's abolition was badly handled. It led to angry letters to newspapers, and the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, even travelled to Los Angeles to assert that the UK was open for business when it came to film.

Since then, Vaizey has consulted widely and also announced today that he was setting up a ministerial film forum to meet every six months or so to debate issues and concerns.

Vaizey also announced that the eight regional screen agencies outside London would be streamlined into a single body, Creative England.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/nov/29/bfi-takes-over-from-ukfc

Slumdog Millionaire - key notes (in case you've lost them)

2010-12-05T20:39:00.000Z

Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2009)

Origins
a) CNN news item about the Hole in the Wall Project in Delhi giving street kids access to computers – kids taught themselves skills and enjoyed themselves
b) Vikas Swarup, an Indian diplomat posted to London, saw the news story about the ex-Army major who cheated on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Saw this was top-rated show in India too – recognised a global format and wanted to write a novel.
c) Most unlikely person to win - most likely to be accused of cheating if he won in India – uneducated kid from the slums
d) Had to be about hope, survival and redemption to appeal to a wide audience
e) Q&A published 2005 in UK and India. Success – Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4

First moves towards adapting it for the screen
a) Even before it was published Swarup’s agent sent a proof copy to Tessa Ross, Head of Film 4; saw possibilities, purchased it, pitched the idea to writer Simon Beaufoy.
b) Beaufoy is a known ‘name’ in the business, a writer with a successful track record – he was needed to secure more funding.
c) Beaufoy – scriptwriter of the Full Monty, one of the most commercially successful Brit films of all times, making $240 million worldwide on the back of considerable promotion by Fox Searchlight. Rather than go to Hollywood, worked with Bille Eltringham on small-scale Brit films about the Asian community, like Yasmin (2004) – much more in common with the films of Ken Loach – script arose from discussion and workshops among the Asian community in Keighley, Yorkshire. Not released in cinemas but broadcast on Channel 4.
d) Beaufoy – background contained elements that seemed relevant to Slumdog and his name would be attractive to potential backers and directors.
e) Q&A is a book comprising various narrative strands and Beaufoy saw the need for as strong narrative – visited Mumbai for research – decided on the idea of explaining the story through the answers the boy gives – which is in the book – but got rid of many of the subplots and extra stories to trim the narrative, making it streamlined to fit the Hollywood model and make it more filmable and, of course, widen its appeal.
f) Key change – instead of the central character being an orphan brought up by an English clergyman, Beaufoy changed him to a Mumbai Muslim slum dweller with a brother Salim. In the novel, Salim is a friend and Mumbai featrures later.
g) Stronger focus on the romantic elements came later at Danny Boyle’s request, as was the structural change that saw Jamal arrested BEFORE the final question, thus adding suspense and tension.
h) Beaufoy certainly introduced some elements to appeal to the UK audience – the call-centre scenes and the way the staff have to soak up elements of British culture, but overall he remains faithful to the spirit of the novel.

Novel – British or Indian?
a) Indian characters, Indian setting, Indian cultural content, so…
b) BUT, not a literary novel in the same way as those Indian novels that win literary prizes and praise in the UK (i.e. the books of Vikram Seth); this is more of a deliberate attempt to write a novel that would be popular, using a recognisable ‘global standard modern English.’ The writing assumes an understanding of global culture rather than specific regional Indian culture – increase its appeal overseas – something reflected in the film itself.

Funding Crisis
a) Film 4, the Channel Four film unit has only 11 staff and a budget of £10m; Tessa Ross had to find partners to help fund the film.
b) Key decision – took the film to head of Celador Films – Christian Coulson. Experienced producer with several important credits (Dirty Pretty Things (2002), The Descent (2005) and Eden Lake (2008)). More than that, Celador International owned the rights to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Though Swarup had been inspired by the cheating scandal in millionaire, he had used a fictional quiz in the book.
c) Ross wanted the rights to use Millionaire – think of how the film would be an advert for the quiz worldwide – it’s an excellent example of cross promotion – people who are familiar with the quiz (and it is known worldwide) may be more likely to se the film; people who see the film may be more likely to watch the quiz.
d) Problem – Celador International was breaking up but Coulson ensured Film 4 would get the rights. The deal put in a small amount in equity and a TV rights payment. Celador Films then added £8m for the production budget with the assistance of a UK tax credit. Still small budget – average Hollywood film costs about £30m.
e) Coulson, as producer started preparing the film even without any overseas distribution deals in place.
f) Six months later, March 2007 – Celador and Film 4 offered the film to Danny Boyle who read the script and accepted it.

Danny Boyle and British Cinema in India
a) Long history of ‘British’ films made in India – many American using British actors.
b) More relevant to are ‘Diaspora' films – made by Indians not living in India or by British Asians – funded by the UK - Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! (UK/France/India, 1988) and Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice (UK/US, 2004).
c) Boyle – a ‘name’ director – Trainspotting (1996), The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), but necessarily someone whose name guarantees box-office success. Had a bad experience on The Beach – didn’t have control and had problems with the British and America crew on location; this time, he wanted complete control and wanted to use Indian cast and crew, though with British heads of departments.
d) Style is obviously European/American – lots of moving camera shots, slow-mo, sped up shots, tilted camera, atmospheric lighting (it could, I suppose, be argued that he makes the slums look photogenic, even the bit when the boy is covered in shit).
e) He had no obvious Indian/Asian connection and for preparation watched Indian films like Ram Gopal Varma’s Company (2002) and those by Mira Nair, such as Salaam Bombay! (1988), which was part funded by Film 4.
f) Insisted on Anthony Dod Mantle, whom he’d worked on 28 Days Later as Cinematographer and who had worked on the Dogme films for Lars von Trier and had recently worked on Wallander for the BBC.
g) Tabrez Noorani - Line Producer who had worked in India and who had worked with Loveleen Tanda, who is credited as co-director (India) and Casting Director and who had worked with Mira Nair
h) Heads of departments were British but most of crew and cast (with the exception of Dev Patel) were recruited in India. Lots of the second unit crew and assistant directors were well-respected Bollywood technicians.
i) Two of the cast were major Indian character actors – Amil Kaur and Irrfan Khan.
j) Film was shot with combination of 35mm and digital film with a ratio of 40:60. Smaller, lighter digital films were useful in action scenes in narrow streets and alleys; some cameras were in fixed positions to catch action from different angles; second unit work was carried out by Bollywood crews in different locations.
k) Shooting took place between Nov 2007 and Feb 2008.

Music
a) Boyle sent a rough cut on DVD to A. R. Rahman, major composer on the World Music scene who has scored many Indian films of varying styles and who has a huge fan base in India, so he could write a soundtrack – another selling point for the film.
b) Rahman teamed up with M.I.A. for two tracks, thus adding to the movie’s appeal to an audience interested in World music. One track, Paper Planes, was nominated for a Grammy for Song of the Year.

Festivals, Release Pattern and Distribution
a) Coulson sells film negative pickup rights to two distributors – Warner International (for distribution rights in North America) and Pathé International (a French company) for the rest of the world. These deals accrued $13m which covered the budget and the equity costs of the producers.
b) Feb 2008 – Pathé sold international distribution rights again to more partners at Berlin Film Festival
c) May 2008 – film promoted at Cannes BUT Warners closed their specialty divisions – looked like they would cut their losses and release the film straight to DVD in North America (but cinema release would still have gone ahead in the UK and the rest of the world because the distributor for those regions was Pathé).
d) Warner allowed Coulson and Ross to show film to Fox Searchlight, which distributed much of Boyle’s earlier work, and an agreement was reached that left Warners with a stake but allowed Fox Searchlight distribution rights for North America.
e) Fox deal just in time for Toronto Film Festival – a major international festival and one which is crucial for the success of non-Hollywood studio films in North America. Fox had a history of recent success with the American indie film Juno in 2007 and this became a platform for its Oscar campaign. Slumdog won audience award – a sign of how popular it would become.
f) Platform release in US and Canada – started in 10 screens on Nov 16; by Christmas week – 589 screens; 1500 by late January. 2900 in March after Oscar success.
g) Wide release elsewhere – 324 screens in UK on Jan 9, building on success in US and Canada. Increased box office takings in first three weeks – number of screens increased as did takings – due to word of mouth and promotion on TV, radio, press.
h) Release in India on Jan 23rd – English language prints (still with 1/3 of the film in Hindi) in multiplexes in city centres; Hindi-dubbed prints in traditional cinemas in suburbs and in the country. English language version more popular and Hindi-version has been listed as an ‘average’ box-office performer – though this is quite an achievement as many Bollywood films are ‘flops’ or ‘disasters’.

Success
a) Most British films that have done well abroad have been made by companies with direct Hollywood studio connections – like the films made by Working Title which is owned by Paramount; Slumdog looks set to be the most commercially successful British independent film of all time – earned approx $300m at the box office so far.
b) Won eight Oscars and nominated for two more; won seven BAFTAs and nominated for another four; plus a host of other awards in the USA and around the world.
c) At the time of writing, still a release of 2000 prints in China, Japan and Korea.
d) Success in Britain. In a proportionate way, Slumdog has been the biggest success in the UK, making $45-50m. Possible reasons why – appeals to the multi-cultural society that the UK has become; the appeal to mid-teen-early20s audience of a young British lead actor known for his role in Skins; the use of the very recognisable and popular Who Wants To Be A Millionaire; plot elements with universal appeal – hope, love story, rags to riches; the film features some aspects of India we’re familiar with – Millionaire, scenes in the call centre, cricket; flashy kinetic camera work with unusual angles and tilts; dramatic lighting, narrative style – appeal to a cine-literate audience A lot of it may down to its success in the USA and Canada, the press coverage this received (British films that do well in the USA always receive a lot of press coverage – there seems to be a feeling that when a UK film does well, we’re putting one over on the Americans but there’s also the feeling that we’ve achieved something to be proud of culturally which is not an everyday event!
e) Success in the USA. Many of the same reasons (including Millionaire, which is a hit there too) – the rags to riches story resonates with the idea of the American Dream where anyone can make it as a success, no matter your background. However, flashy as the camera work and editing are, there are none of the explosions or special effects that are normally associated with big box office hits in the US (though there is the romance), nor are there any actors the bulk of the audience would be familiar with. The key to its success may be down to the ethnic diversity of the audience – there are large southern Asian populations in many North American cities, especially in the northeast, including Toronto, where the movie first took off and New York; however, the film received heavy promotion in the US – Boyle and Patel devoted themselves to hundreds of interviews on TV channels across the US (especially on Fox subsidiaries) as well as in print media and there is a mass of promotional material on the official Fox website. It should be noted, however, that the trailers in the US didn’t play Indian music. The platform release strategy, picking up momentum as it received nominations which were widely covered in the media, also boosted audience interest and you could say its success was driven by awards and nominations.

Slumdog as a British film
a) A key issue about the British film industry is what defines British cinema
b) Slumdog – set in India; source material was by an Indian writer, although not written in traditional Indian literary style; many of the film’s crew were Indian; all but one of the principle and the majority of the supporting cast were Indian; almost a third of the dialogue is in Hindi.
c) Director, writer, lead actor, key members of the film crew were British; two-thirds of the dialogue was in English; the initial funding for the production was British; the production company and producer were British.
d) It was passed as British by the UK Film Council and thus received tax allowances. However, this has fairly stringent criteria, based on cultural content, cultural contribution, cultural hubs and cultural practitioners and films have to score at least 16 points out of a possible 31 to pass. On cultural content it may get 5 or 6 – the subject matter has some British cultural connection and the dialogue is mainly in English; cultural contribution – it uses British creativity; cultural hubs – although it was filmed abroad there was post-production work in the UK , cultural practitioners – most cast and crew are Indian, but key figures are British. Be lucky if you could award it 12 or 13 points. However, it is believed it passed on the strength of a letter of support written by Christian Coulson, in which he argued the film was a meaningful contribution to British culture.

It could have received tax allowances had it been a co-production with an Indian company as the UK has co-production agreements with certain countries; or if it had qualified as British under European conventions (for which it could’ve received support for screenings, distribution etc.). However, it was a wholly UK-financed production (US money was only involved for distribution) and it was not a co-production with an Indian company.
Influence of British production background as opposed to British/American like Working Title films – no American star.

Slumdog as ‘Global’ film
What are global media?
I’ve taken global media to be concerned with media forms that are produced in several different production contexts around the world, which then circulate in more than one market and in so doing influence production in the second market. In this way the medium is increasingly globalised as domestic industries mutate through a process of interaction.

In terms of film, up until now the predominant form of change in the international film industry has been of a hegemonic Hollywood across most markets slowly absorbing new talent and ideas thrown up by smaller commercial industries, which have in turn often imitated and stolen Hollywood material. In this paradigm, Hollywood has had little contact with the major film industries of India and has recently found itself to a certain extent rebuffed by renascent industries in Japan, South Korea and the ‘three Chinas’. This challenge to Hollywood has been met by the activities of the major US studios in seeking production deals with South Asian and East Asian producers. In historical terms, this represents something of a return to the 1960s when Hollywood studios attempted to create co-production deals in Europe, especially in Italy and with Japan, but the current engagement with India and China is new. However, the early attempts to engage directly with Indian producers on films such as Chandni Chowk to China (2008) has so far proved strikingly unsuccessful. It is in this context that the distribution and exhibition of Slumdog Millionaire has been so striking.

What makes Slumdog Millionaire so different?
• An Indian property – an Indian novel, Q & A, written in English by Vikas Swarup;
• A UK production company, Film 4, and its partner, Celador, the owner of the rights to the TV format at the centre of the novel, WWTBAM;
• A UK scriptwriter, Simon Beaufoy and UK director Danny Boyle
• Indian musical composer, A R Rahman
• UK dept heads and Indian crew
• One UK actor plus stars of Bollywood and parallel cinema plus non-professional actors
• An Indian shoot and shared post-production India/UK
• A Hollywood studio as North American distributor via its specialist label
• A British/French distributor in the UK
• An Indian subsidiary of a Hollywood studio (Warners) as distributor in India
• Appearances at international film festivals, culminating in awards in the US and UK
• Given a budget of either $10 million or £10 million (sources vary), Slumdog has been a major commercial success. As of 3/3/09 box office grosses were as follows:
US $100 million; UK $37 million; after these, the biggest markets have been France, Australia, Italy, Spain; India (Hindi) $2.6 million; India (English) $3.4 million.
Note that the film has not been a big hit in Hindi markets, but has done very well in English language markets (don’t forget it is still a third Hindi in the English prints). Since tickets for Hindi halls are generally likely to be lower priced than the English language screens, it still means a sizeable audience of around 8-10 million Indians (plus pirated DVD viewings etc.).

Cinema in India
There are many myths about Indian Cinema, not least the confusion between Hindi Cinema, Bollywood and Indian Cinema generally.

• There are around 800-1000 films produced each year in India.
• The largest number of films are produced in the four South Indian languages of Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. These four regional industries account for more than half of all Indian films.
• The highest profile films with the most promotion and usually the biggest box office (by revenue) are the 200 or so Bollywood films made in Hindi.
• The remaining 200 films are produced in other so-called ‘regional’ languages, including Bengali, Marathi, Bhojpuri etc.
• Some of the films made in Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam plus occasional Tamil and Telugu films and several made in English are classified as artfilms, specialised films or ‘Parallel Cinema’.
• Bollywood film producers increasingly export films to the diaspora of NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) in the UK and North America as well as Africa and other parts of Asia. Other Indian film industries also export films, especially the Tamil industry to Malaysia, Singapore and again to the UK and North America.
• Indian cinemas in most major cities play films in several languages – usually Hindi, English and the regional language.
• Slumdog Millionaire was released in English and Hindi versions. American films such as March of the Penguins have also been dubbed into Telugu and Tamil.
• What makes Slumdog unique is that its typical Danny Boyle style was influenced by several Indian film industry characteristics including Parallel Cinema and South Indian films as well as Bollywood.

Slumdog style
Danny Boyle built up a reputation, largely based on his successful British pictures (Shallow Grave (1995), Trainspotting (1996) and 28 Days Later (2002)), for stylised cinematography and fast cutting. A feature of his work has been partnerships with cinematographers and editors prepared to work in his style (much of which recently has been developed using digital cameras). Anthony Dod Mantle, Director of Photography on Slumdog was with Boyle when he experimented with early digital cameras on UK television films in 2001. Mantle was also a major player in the so-called Dogme movement starting in Denmark with Festen in 1998.

A distinctive UK/Danish approach was adapted on the Slumdog shoot after Boyle had studied a range of Indian filmmaking styles. These included Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay (all of her Indian films in fact) and Aamir Khan’s films as actor and director and Ram Gopal Varma.

Slumdog and Reception Studies
Slumdog has quickly become one of the most discussed films of recent times. This is perhaps less to do with the film in terms of its narrative (although audiences seem genuinely entertained by its ideas and their presentation) and more to do with its status as a cultural object. The critical and industry discussion of the film started as soon as it was released in the US in December and at the time of its UK release in late January this intensified into a debate in the press and the media more generally. This in turn was revived and extended at the time of the 8 Oscar triumph in February. At the same time, the film created a mixed response in India (again affected by Oscar success with some Indian commentators caught between wanting to condemn the film for being ‘not Indian enough’, but at the same time wanting to celebrate Oscar success for A R Rahman (twice) and sound recordist Resul Pookutty.

Range of debates around the film which make it a candidate for a global or possibly ‘globalising’ product. One focuses on ideas about realism – is the film denigrating India by showing the reality of poverty or denigrating it by offering a ‘Western view, a tourist’s view rather than a realist view? These are mutually exclusive arguments frequently presented.

A second argument surrounds the extent to which the film draws on existing Indian Cinema (in all its manifestations) and mixes it with Western styles. This is my position, but others argue forcibly against it. Much depends of course on the width of viewing experience of the critic. It is worth remembering that some Indian commentators may not watch any other Indian films outside of Bollywood. The extent of the release in both English and Hindi versions of the film is important, as is the success of the soundtrack album in reaching a wider Indian audience.
• What kinds of audience behaviour and consumption are increasingly global?
• What are the arguments for and against global media, in relation to content, access, representation and identity?
I would contend that Indian cinema audiences are moving towards a mode of cinemagoing that is more closely aligned to that of North America, Europe and East Asia, i.e. through the new-build multiplexes, now with digital projection. However, there is a distinct divide between the poor and the new middle class and between the rural and urban audiences. There are thousands of traditional cinemas in India in which audience behaviour will be much slower to change (see Indian research into audience behaviour quoted in Understanding Audiences and the Film Industry, 2007: 158). At the same time, satellite TV (often pirated), VCDs and DVDs (also pirated) may be supplying poorer audiences with greater access to films (as well as ‘World Cinema’ to upmarket audiences).

Is this a ‘good thing’ or a ‘bad thing’? Cultural imperialism? Hollywood is approaching the newly emergent Indian media conglomerates with rapidity, but also some trepidation. (DreamWorks was effectively bought by the Indian major, Reliance, not the other way round.) In an Indian context, issues over identity may be played out much more in a Hindi v Tamil/Telugu stand-off or fears that a ‘globalised’ and unified Indian national identity might threaten as a regional power to overwhelm Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Other aspect of debate - is the role of the Non Resident Indian audience in the UK. To a large extent, Bollywood films in the UK are still playing to a ‘diasporic (i.e. Indians living in the UK) audience’. Both Hollywood and Bollywood seek that potential crossover hit – an Indian produced film that attracts a general UK and US audience. Slumdog is arguably nearer to that goal than the Hollywood co-produced Indian films so far released.

Viral Marketing

2010-12-05T20:31:00.001Z

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.[1] Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages.

The marketing campaign for the 2008 film The Dark Knight combined both online and real-life elements to make it resemble an alternate reality game. Techniques included mass gatherings of Joker fans, scavenger hunts around world, detailed and intricate websites that let fans actually participate in "voting" for political offices in Gotham City, and even a Gotham News Network that has links to other Gotham pages such as Gotham Rail, a Gotham travel agency, and political candidate's pages. The movie also markets heavily off of word of mouth from the thousands of Batman fans.

How can you apply this to the case of Slumdog?

Slumdog on DVD

2010-12-05T20:22:00.003Z

In some ways, the theatrical release is like a huge promo for the DVD/Blu-ray - IF it's successful. When you're talking about the importance of digital technology, you MUST refer to the DVD/Blu-ray release.

Bonus features to be found in both home video versions include a "making-of" documentary, deleted scenes, and a Slumdog Cutdown. Commentary from director Danny Boyle and actor Dev Patel in addition to commentary from producer Christian Colson and writer Simon Beaufoy can also be seen in the special features section.

The sparkling Blu-ray package adds a dozen deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, a music video, an Indian short film, a breakdown of the infamous toilet scene, commentary by Boyle, actor Dev Patel and writer Simon Beaufoy, and a separate digital copy for play on iPods and other portable devices as well. Pre-orders for the Blu-ray Disc and the DVD could be made via Amazon.

Shot with a combination of film and video cameras, Slumdog Millionaire comes to Blu- ray with its distinctively stylized appearance intact. It's a unique looking movie with an abundance of moody, almost monochromatic photography, designed to depict the seemingly infinite mass of Mumbai residents in a style that never glamorizes their suffering. As a matter of fact, director of photography Anthony Dod Mantle's rich photography was honored with the Academy Award for achievement in cinematography just last month. Given the film's pedigree and award recognition, Fox has given Slumdog Millionaire a high bitrate AVC Mpeg-4 1080p encode, in the film's original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1, that captures the movie's groundbreaking style to perfection.

Once upon a time, winners of the Oscar for Best Picture would take their good-natured time making their way from the nation's multiplexes to the local video store. The idea was to milk as much money from theater-goers as possible, then build anticipation for the video-cassette release by keeping the movie out of circulation for as many as six months. This system worked to the benefit not only of theater owners, but also the pirates who, we were told, used the extended window to pick the pockets of studio executives.

Slumdog Millionaire arrives in DVD and Blu-ray only FIVE weeks after the Academy Awards bonanza helped squeeze another $40 million from the domestic box-office, bringing total grosses to a very respectable $137 million. Indeed, last week, the Mumbai fairy tale was still playing on more than 2,000 screens nationwide. It leads one to wonder if the temptation to exploit the Oscar hype was as strong a reason to release Slumdog on video as the desire to trump the pirates at their own game.

Bear in mind the competiton this will have from illegal downloads and dodgy bootleg copies - the makers have to ensure that the DVD is an attractive option...

Explore some of the ways in which new technologies have had an impact on a media industry you have studied

2010-12-05T20:19:00.002Z

Digital cinematography is the process of capturing motion pictures as digital images, rather than on film. Digital capture may occur on tape, hard disks, flash memory, or other media which can record digital data. As digital technology has improved, this practice has become increasingly common. Many mainstream Hollywood movies now are shot partly or fully digitally. The Academy Award for Best Cinematography was awarded to Slumdog Millionaire, a movie shot mainly digital in 2009.

Better sense of how the image will look - When shooting digitally, response to light is determined by the sensor(s) in the camera and recorded and "developed" directly. This means a cinematographer can measure and predict exactly how the final image will look by eye if familiar with the specific model of camera being used. On-set monitoring allows the cinematographer to see the actual images that are captured, immediately on the set, which is impossible with film. With a properly calibrated high-definition display, on-set monitoring can give the cinematographer a far more accurate picture of what is being captured than is possible with film.

More portable - Ultra-lightweight and extremely compact digital cinematography cameras are much smaller and lighter than mechanical film cameras. On Slumdog, film was shot with combination of 35mm and digital film with a ratio of 40:60. Smaller, lighter digital films were useful in action scenes in narrow streets and alleys. Danny Boyle had previous experience of digital shooting with his director of photography, Anthony Dod Mantle, on 28 Days Later.

Digital filiming offers better performance than film in low-light conditions, allowing less lighting and in some cases completely natural or practical lighting to be used for shooting, even indoors. This low-light sensitivity also tends to bring out shadow detail. However, the sensors even in most high-end digital video cameras have less exposure latitude (dynamic range) than modern motion picture film stocks. In particular, they tend to 'blow out' highlights, losing detail in very bright parts of the image – you saw this in Shooting Magpies!

Films are traditionally shot with dual-system recording, where picture is recorded on camera, and sync sound is recorded to a separate sound recording device. Picture and sound are then synced up in post-production. In the past this was done manually by lining up the image of the just-closed clapper board sticks with their characteristic "Click!" on the sound recording. Nowadays this is normally done automatically using timecodes burnt onto the edge of the film emulsion. Digital cinema cameras can record sound internally, already in sync with picture, eliminating the need for syncing so work can be faster.
Cheaper - For the last 25 years, respected filmmakers like George Lucas predicted electronic or digital cinematography would bring about a revolution in filmmaking, by dramatically lowering costs. Amber used digital on Shooting Magpies due to problems with funding when Channel 4 were undergoing restructuring - felt the need to reclaim some kind of control so they decided to make the feature with considerably less expensive digital video, particularly when the filmmakers were pleased with the quality of the material that had been shot to research the production. The film was shot with available light and virtually no location budget. Digital video takes cost pressures off improvisation and experiment and digital editing allowed access to a far wider group of the filmmakers than traditional analogue editing.

For low-budget productions, digital cinematography has cost benefits over shooting on 35 mm or even 16 mm film. The cost of film stock, processing, telecine, negative cutting, and titling for a feature film can run to tens of thousands of dollars. Editing is also easier and the equipment can be portable and viewed immediately. Most extremely low-budget movies never receive wide distribution, but this may change with the advent of disgital distribution.

Improved speed, security and the ability to connect to the postproduction already while shooting, play a role when A-budgets are shot digitally and not mechanically. Skipping developing the negative, linking live via satellite or data networks, on set backups of the shots and immediate availability of high-quality dailies on blu-ray, hdcam or file-base have become commonplavce for many directors and Directors of Photography. The ability to check expensive shots at once on set, the possibility to backup and copy shots in high quality on the set, the immediate transfer to postproduction and remote viewing of second unit work by directors allow massive cost- and timesavings and reduce risks.

Recent films, such as Sin City and Superman Returns, both shot on digital tape, had budgets of $40 million and close to $200 million respectively. The cost savings, probably in the range of several hundred thousand to over a million dollars, are not negligible for today's producers. Consider, for example how small Slumdog’s budget was – it would have been much more – beyond what the producers had – to shoot the whole movie on film.

In 2009, the Academy Award for best cinematography was awarded for a film where more than half was shot digitally, Slumdog Millionaire. Another nominee, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, was also shot digitally.

Digital distribution and exhibition - For the over 4000 theatres with digital projectors in the USA, digital films may be distributed digitally, either shipped to theaters on hard drives or sent via the Internet or satellite networks. Digital Cinema Initiatives, a joint venture of the major studios, has established standards for digital cinema projection.

Distributors prefer digital distribution, because it saves them the expense of making film prints, which may cost as much as $2000 each. Digital projection also offers advantages over traditional film projection such as lack of jitter, flicker, dust, scratches, and grain. They are also far more flexible with regard to running trailers, pre-feature advertisements and the like. In the majority of cases, rather than being a complete conversion to digital projection, the likely scenario is digital projectors sitting side-by-side with film projectors in the projection booths, (often replacing the pre-feature slide projector) or only some units in a multiplex being Digital Only. New cinemas use a mixture of film and digital projection.

Digital distribution in the UK – near the end of 2005, the UK distribution and exhibition sectors were starting to move towards digital distribution and exhibition. For exhibitors, digital projection, especially when married to the increasing use digital formats in production, can now replicate - if not surpass - the image quality of conventional 35mm cinema presentation. And, of course, digital sound systems have been used in cinemas for some time.

At the stage of distribution, the advantages of digital technology are even clearer. Digital technology is seen to offer a more cost effective and logistics-light alternative to the tried and trusted, but unwieldy model of 35mm print distribution described above. Eventually - cheaper and much less stressful to send films as computer files to cinemas across the UK, than to transport 20-25kg tins of film in the back of a van.

The force of this change and the new capacity of technology to replicate 35mm imaging, has led the UK Film Council to establish a digital distribution and exhibition programme for the theatrical sector at the end of 2005. The Digital Screen Network (DSN) will eventually support new facilities in 211 screens across the country (out of a total of just over 3,300 screens in the UK) - a small but important step change towards full digital cinema.

The DSN will initially work with files transferred from a high definition digital master (either HDD5, or HD Cam). The compressed and encrypted files will be sent directly to cinemas to be opened as files for screening with digital projection equipment. In the future it will be possible for the distributor to send feature film files electronically, via broadband networks, thus eliminating dependence on transportation.

The advent of digital distribution has the potential radically to alter the work of distributors around the world. The comparatively low cost of film copies and additional logistical effectiveness of digital distribution provide the distributor with greater flexibility. It will be less expensive in the coming years to offer a wide theatrical opening with many copies, and also conversely, to screen a film for just one performance at any cinema. In theory - possible for both distributors and exhibitors to respond more precisely to audience demand.

In the future, more titles, both mainstream and specialised, could receive wide theatrical openings, and that this broadening of access at the point of release will dramatically reduce the overall theatrical period from 3-6 months to perhaps 1-3 months. Films will then enter into a second-run and repertory programming market aided by lower costs.

The shortened first-run period will in turn bring forward the distributor's release of the DVD. And there's the rub. The adoption of digital technologies offers greater opportunities for distributors to create joined-up campaigns for theatrical and DVD releases, in which, increasingly, the theatrical opening is used as a way of providing a loss-leading marketing platform for the highly lucrative DVD leg.
Currently, however - not all theaters currently have digital projection systems, even if a movie is shot and post-produced digitally, it must be transferred to film if a large theatrical release is planned. Typically, a film recorder will be used to print digital image data to film, to create a 35 mm internegative. After that the duplication process is identical to that of a traditional negative from a film camera. Slumdog, of course, was a mix of 35mm film and digital.

Digital special effects – creation of crowds, buildings, fantasy worlds – can cut costs but the artificial nature can be off-putting e.g. Beowulf as opposed to the more arty look of Sin City. On Sunshine (2007), about a spaceship heading for the sun to save earth, Danny Boyle used CGI to create the effect of the craft moving through space.

Marketing - New technology can target specific audiences in a variety of ways - creation of standalone studio-sponsored per-film websites such as "example-the-movie.com" – which will include trailers, teasers, competitions, infiormation, stills, short excerpts, music etc

Slumdog – stories, reviews and interviews in traditional print and audo-visual media were bolstered by word of mouth – supported by new technology – twitter, email, social networking sites, blogs - in today’s highly networked world, the buzz spread so fast.

Viral marketing: free distribution of trailers on movie-oriented websites and video user-generated-content websites (e.g Youtube), and rapid dissemination of links to this content by email and blogs. Includes alleged leakage of supposed "rushes" and "early trailers" of film scenes. E.g.- a remixed viral trailer for the UK release of the Oscar-tipped Danny Boyle film Slumdog Millionaire, using only images and sounds from the film has been produced by audiovisual artists Addictive TV.
Addictive TV was approached by French film company Pathé (distribuor of the film in Europe and the UK) and filmmaker Boyle to create a mash-up video for Slumdog Millionaire after giving similar treatments to previous blockbuster film releases such as Iron Man. Their purpose was to help market the film through online video sharing sites, like YouTube.

The mobile phone is the ultimate platform for targeted advertising – trailers etc - right in front of your face all day; it’s your most personal device, your conduit to the outside world. It’s a marketer’s dream location.

Take the example of Watchmen on iphones - this application has a head start, as there are already superb visuals to work with from the graphic novel. Its main screen features one character watching a bank of TVs (like the bank of icons on the phone) - one of the recurring points in the graphic novel - and is scrollable. Clicking on those TVs releases further content, and when you return to the main screen, more TVs are available to click. It’s a nice interface, and in keeping with the source material. Content available includes: trailers, “motion comics” that were developed from the original novel, photos, which are saveable to the Photo Library, character profiles, video journals, links which open up Safari (the internet).
Ads for films can be placed on social networking sites – targeted at specific age groups and gender based on information gathered on users’ profiles.

Audience strategies in facilitating or challenging institutional practices – in the past, studios tended to control film publicity, allowing interviews and sending out press releases. Now, in the era of mass popular access to the internet, people express their views on films on blogs, social network sites etc and some have become well established enough to be accesses and referenced in newspaper reviews e.g. Ain’t It Cool News (aintitcool.com); negative comments about Slumdog Millionaire were written by the Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan on his blog and then picked up by The Guardian in the UK, then referred to by film scholars like Roy Stafford and David Bordwell on their blogs.

Of course, you now have to factor in the loss of the UK Film Council and its replacement by the BFI...

British Film Industry and New Technology question

2010-12-05T20:14:00.003Z

How was new technology used to promote/market the product from your chosen media industry?

Use Celador and Film 4's Slumdog as an example, but note how it compares to other companies' works.

For example - Amber's product; Paramount's Paranormal Activity; the particular film that your group has been researching.

Slumdog and Audience

2010-12-05T20:09:00.002Z

Discuss the issues raised by the institution’s need to target specific audiences with a media industry you have studied

i.e. using the production of Slumdog Millionaire as your primary example.

Low budget compared with many average Hollywood film of $30-35m; approx $21m.

Production practices which allow for specific audiences – Original source material Vikas Swarup’s Q&A – written in a way to appeal to the largest audience possible – global standard English; look at the way the novel was altered and streamlined by Simon Beaufoy in the adaptation, increasing its appeal to a global audience;

Appeal to Indian audiences in India and in the West– setting and subject matter; some cast members are well-know in India - two of the cast were major Indian character actors – Amil Kaur and Irrfan Khan. Boyle worked with Tabrez Noorani - Line Producer who had worked in India and who had worked with Loveleen Tanda, who is credited as co-director (India) and Casting Director and who had worked with director Mira Nair to get a feel for the place and people. One third of film is in Hindi. When released in India, dubbed into regional languages to aid its reception.
Visual style - Danny Boyle studied examples of Indian cinema, including Mira Saiir’s Salaam Bombay! And was influenced by Ram Gopal Varma’s Company (2002), with its thrusting wide angles, overhead shots, and jump cuts.

Music - Boyle sent a rough cut on DVD to A. R. Rahman, major composer on the World Music scene who has scored many Indian films of varying styles and who has a huge fan base in India, so he could write a soundtrack – another selling point for the film. Rahman teamed up with M.I.A. for two tracks, thus adding to the movie’s appeal to an audience interested in World music. One track, Paper Planes, was nominated for a Grammy for Song of the Year.

Appeal to UK audience – several points of reference – things it would be familiar with – cricket, the conversation about Eastenders, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, the call centre, Dev Patel – a known face on UK TV – appeals to 15-25 audience who are familiar with Skins. Danny Boyle is a name director and has had hits with Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, for example; 2/3 of the film is in English.

Universal appeal – Millionaire – a hit around the world, including the USA, the largest market; the love story, which was foregrounded by writer Simon Beaufoy; age of average cinemagoer in the west between 15-25 – film features a young cast, with the present day characters within that age range, allowing the audience to relate to them; Boyle has an international reputation; writer Simon Beaufoy is known for The Full Monty, formerly the most successful British film in the world; 2/3 of the film is in English

Universal style: Boyle’s flashy style - lots of moving camera shots, slow-mo, sped up shots, tilted camera, atmospheric lighting – has a lot in common with current American action films and TV – will appeal to Western audiences. Despite the fact that Boyle studied some Indian cinema, critic and theorist David Bordwell pointed out on his blog that although it’s set in India and filmed with an Indian crew (apart from Heads of depts) and a largely Indian cast, style is a hybrid of various styles common to many forms of cinema and television throughout the world. Bordwell claims Indian popular films have long been hybrids, borrowing from European and American cinema on many levels. Their mixture of local and international elements has helped the films travel overseas and become objects of adoration to many westerners.

Distribution and marketing strategies to raise audience awareness of specific products or types of products

How distributed – look at your notes to see how the film came to be marketed by the French company, Pathé (in Europe and the UK), and Warners in North America, until cutbacks meant the film might only hve been released on DVD in the USA, which would have had a drastic effect on their finances – then Warners allowed Coulson (from Celador) and Ross (from Film4) to show film to Fox Searchlight, which distributed much of Boyle’s earlier work, and an agreement was reached that left Warners with a stake but allowed Fox Searchlight distribution rights for North America.

Successful screening at film festivals – positive media and audience response, especially at Toronto Film Festival where it won the audience award– which garnered much positive publicity to help the film’s launch in North America - platform release in US and Canada – started in 10 screens on Nov 16; by Christmas week – 589 screens; 1500 by late January. 2900 in March after Oscar success. Big Indian population in several North American cities, especially in the northeast, helped its popularity – and, indeed, journalists catering for South Asian communities were invited to press screenings a month before the film’s release so they could do stories and raise awareness. Trailers were released in the US that weren’t accompanied by Indian music, in case some sections of the potential audience found that off-putting. Intensive media campaign throughout the US – TV, Print and online interviews (e.g one between Boyle and Oprah Winfrey) to promote the film – particularly on the Fox network; Fox website – trailers, interviews etc.

Rest of the world – released later. If it’s a success in the USA, other countries take notice. Wide release elsewhere – 324 screens in UK on Jan 9, building on success in US and Canada. Increased box office takings in first three weeks – number of screens increased as did takings – due to word of mouth and promotion on TV, radio, press.

Release in India on Jan 23rd – English language prints (still with 1/3 of the film in Hindi) in multiplexes in city centres; Hindi-dubbed prints in traditional cinemas in suburbs and in the country. English language version more popular and Hindi-version has been listed as an ‘average’ box-office performer – though this is quite an achievement as many Bollywood films are ‘flops’ or ‘disasters’.

The use of new technology to facilitate targeting of specific audiences

A variety of ways: - creation of standalone studio-sponsored per-film websites such as "example-the-movie.com" – which will include trailers, teasers, competitions, infiormation, stills, short excerpts, music etc
Viral marketing: free distribution of trailers on movie-oriented websites and video user-generated-content websites (e.g Youtube), and rapid dissemination of links to this content by email and blogs. Includes alleged leakage of supposed "rushes" and "early trailers" of film scenes.e.g.- a remixed viral trailer for the UK release of the Oscar-tipped Danny Boyle film Slumdog Millionaire, using only images and sounds from the film was produced by audiovisual artists Addictive TV. Addictive TV was approached by French film company Pathé and Boyle to create a mash-up video for Slumdog Millionaire to market it through online video sharing sites.The video can also be accessed in as a high quality version on YouTube.
The mobile phone is the ultimate platform for targeted advertising – trailers etc. How do you market a film these days? Billboards, newspapers and TV channels are everywhere. But none of them are right in front of your face all day; you don’t constantly check them. The same is not true of your mobile. It’s your most personal device, your conduit to the outside world. It’s a marketer’s dream location. e.g. Watchmen application for iPhones. There are superb visuals to work with from the graphic novel. Its main screen features one character watching a bank of TVs (the icons on the phone screen) - one of the recurring points in the graphic novel - and is scrollable. Clicking on those TVs releases further content, and when you return to the main screen, more TVs are available to click. Content available includes: trailers, “motion comics” that were developed from the original novel, photos, which are saveable to the Photo Library, character profiles, video journals, links which open up Safari (the internet).
Clearly, film studios want closer customer engagement. Marketing to your mobile is about as direct as they will get. But they have to make it worth our while. These apps will need to offer a genuinely interesting glimpse into the movie to come; and even so, they are likely to only have a short lifespan on our devices. The content needs to be accessible anywhere - not dependent on connectivity - is important. If I’m stuck in a mobile dead zone, and this promo app gives me nothing, that’s clearly no good; also, at the moment, you don’t see these sorts of apps on other mobile platforms - it’s only on the iPhone.

Other new technology - ads for films can be placed on social networking sites – targeted at specific age groups and gender based on information gathered on users’ profiles. What gave Slumdog so much momentum was word of mouth – supported by new technology – twitter, email, social networking sites, blogs. Mostly positive - so, everyone relevant (and not so relevant) had an opinion, and in today’s highly networked world, the buzz spread so fast.

Audience strategies in facilitating or challenging institutional practices
In the past, studios tended to control film publicity, allowing interviews and sending out press releases. Now, in the era of mass popular access to the internet, people express their views on films on blogs, social network sites etc and some have become well established enough to be accesses and referenced in newspaper reviews e.g. Ain’t It Cool News (aintitcool.com); negative comments about Slumdog Millionaire were written by the Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan on his blog (stating that a film set in an Indian slum directed by an Indian wouldn’t get that much attention and pointing out that the deprivation shown in the film exists in cities in developed nations too) and then picked up by The Guardian in the UK, then commented on in their blogs, allowing more people to respond (although Bachchan later denied he had intended to be critical of the film), then referred to by film scholars like Roy Stafford and David Bordwell on their blogs.

GCSE Horror Posters II

2010-11-27T12:06:00.003Z

Sarah Connelly

Jan Labro

Katie Gouldburn

Laura Hetherington

Dominic Lisle

Marx and Re-Marx

2010-11-10T15:05:00.005Z

Written by Andrew Smith, one of our former students!

In 1932 the legendary Marx Brothers began work on one of their most hilarious and enduring feature films, Duck Soup. At the same time work also commenced on their first ever radio series, a half hour sitcom that featured the adventures and mishaps that befell the underhanded lawyer Waldorf T. Flywheel (Groucho) and his hapless assistant Emmanelle Ravelli (Chico). This series, eventually entitled Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, written by Marx collaborators and comic geniuses Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman, was popular with audiences but short lived and soon forgotten. The scripts were shelved, the recordings discarded and the Marxes went back to work on Duck Soup, A Day at the Races and other comedy classics.

Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, however, refused to remain buried and tantalizing glimpses of routines from the series went on to be reused in classic films like Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera and The Big Store.

Luckily for Marx fans everywhere the scripts to these classic radio broadcasts were rediscovered in the early 1980s, their publication eventually leading to a affectionate and side splittingly funny British remake of the series for BBC Radio 4.

You can't keep a good joke down.

For the first time in detail Marx and Re-Marx takes a look at the history of this enduring series, its genesis, its death and its resurrection.

Featuring:

Previously unpublished letters from the desk of Flywheel creator Nat Perrin.
Full Episode Guides for both incarnations of the Flywheel and a guide to related productions.
Contributions from the cast and crew of the BBC remake of Flywheel; Mark Brisenden (Weekending, Spitting Image), David Firman (Dinner Ladies, Norbert Smith: A Life), Graham Hoadly (The Adventures of Sexton Blake, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Stageshow), Dirk Maggs (Superman: Doomsday and Beyond, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency), and Frank Lazarus (Pennies From Heaven, Our Friends in the North).
Transcripts of the remaining recordings of the original series.

http://bearmanormedia.bizland.com/id448.html

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marx-Re-Marx-Creating-Recreating-Brothers/dp/1593936095/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1288006116&sr=8-7

GCSE Horror Movie Posters

2010-10-29T17:06:00.005+01:00

Jack Elliott

Cory Bainbridge

Charlotte Mattinson

Jack Richmond

Rachel Fenwick

Teaser trailer for the Coen Brothers' True Grit

2010-10-07T19:55:00.002+01:00

Watch and learn: note how there's movement in virtually every shot to build pace and engender a sense of excitement; nite how the edits are used to puncuate the piece and the style adds to the sense of the story unfolding before you...

Mise-en-scène

2010-10-06T14:17:00.002+01:00

Mise-en-scène refers to everything within the frame of the screen. Some theorists and critics make a point of including diegetic sound (i.e. the sound that comes from within the scene, not sound coming from an external source). Otherwise, the key areas under consideration are the following:

• Production Design, such as sets, props and costumes - this includes colour!
• Lighting and shadow - also includes the use of colour!
• Actors’ performance (including make up), movement, gesture and position (blocking)
• Framing - including position; depth of field; aspect ratio; height and angle (but not movement)

The intepretation of the mise-en-scène will depend on the broader context of the film itself, but its construction can support the narrative and help raise (or play with) audience expectations and contextualise the camera shots, movement, editing and dialogue.

Here are several great shots from three movies; even if you don't know the storyline, you can certainly make an attempt to 'read' them based on the mise-en-scène. Click on the images to blow them up to A4-size.

Basic camera shot distances and angles

2010-10-06T14:09:00.002+01:00

Click on the images to open them up to A4 size:

AQA GCSE Media Studies 2009-2011

2010-10-04T09:33:00.003+01:00

Assignment 1

1/ A written analysis of a short extract from a TV programme (such as CSI, 24 or Spooks), paying attention to the key concepts: audience, media language, representation, audience and, where possible, institutional concerns
2/ Storyboard an opening sequence of a similar show
3/ Analyse effectiveness of own storyboards with reference to the key concepts

Assignment 2

1/ Analyse and compare two methods of promoting a film (i.e. trailer, website, poster, radio ad)
2/ On Photoshop, design a poster for a film of your own – and evaluate its effectiveness
3/ Storyboard a trailer and analyse its effectiveness

Assignment 3

Practical Production

Task: Produce at least four pages of a magazine, including a double-paged spread.
Students must provide evidence of knowledge of conventions of existing products by analysing magazine pages and flat plans; they also need to show awareness of the needs of audience by producing a survey or questionnaire and analysing the results.

The production must be accompanied by a written evaluation which relates the process of construction to the key concepts.

Year 11 GCSE Magazine Covers 2010

2010-07-06T15:30:00.012+01:00

Grace Goodall

Emily Park

Natalie Wood

Amy Pattison

Anthony Kelly

Hayley Innes

Shaun Liddle

Lauren Foster

Hannah Morpeth

Lee Baker

Hollie Staward

Terence Morning

Helen Houghton

Ryan Taylor

Rachel Tindle

Natalie Scott

Year 11 GCSE Magazine Contents Pages 2010

2010-07-06T14:31:00.007+01:00

Emma Dakers

Kizzie Hall

Grace Goodall

Anthony Kelly

Year 11 GCSE Media Studies Magazine Features 2010

2010-07-04T18:56:00.007+01:00

Nicole Whyatt

Rosie Hovvels

Emily Park

Ryan Taylor

Hannah Morpeth

Rachel Tindle

Lauren Foster

Kizzie Hall

Natalie Scott

Grace Goodall

Shaun Liddle

Natalie Wood

Anthony Kelly

Emma Dakers

Hayely Innes

Terence Morning

Hollie Staward

Lee Baker

Nicholas Bedford

Helen Houghton

Aimee Pattinson

Year 11 GCSE Media Studies Magazine Adverts 2010

2010-07-04T18:55:00.000+01:00

Natalie Wood

Lauren Foster

Natalie Scott

Emma Dakers

Natalie Scott

Teri Morning

Anthony Kelly

Rosie Hovvels

Nicole Whyatt

Helen Houghton

Emily Park

Shaun Liddle

Nicholas Bedford

Hannah Morpeth

Kizzie Hall

Lee Baker

Hayley Innes

Rachel Tindle

Hollie Staward

British Science-Fiction Movie Posters from the 1950s and early 1960s

2010-07-04T18:38:00.003+01:00

The rocket at the bottom of the garden from Quatermass II

British science fiction movies of the 1950s and early 60s pretty much followed their American counterparts in being Cold War allegories while cinema in both countries battled to compete with television for the public’s attention, but of course the genre was coloured by the country of origin's particular political and social climate to allow for UK audiences the chance to relate to national anxieties.

Rather like the industry today, where funding was tight, film-makers often had to look abroad for financial support and strike deals with American producers and distributors. To receive American funding and ensure a release in the USA, often as the second part of a double bill, it was often the case that the films featured an American ‘star’ – in the loosest possible understanding of the term. Then current grade A stars rarely appeared; usually they were older actors, on their way down, like Brian Donlevy, or perhaps second string stars who never quite made the grade beyond supporting actor, like Forrest Tucker.

It could be argued that British film science fiction competed with television by taking its lead from that medium. Nigel Kneale and Rudloph Cartier had adapted George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four as early as 1954; two years later it was adapted for the big screen by William Templeton and Ralph Gilbert Bettison with Michael Anderson directing and American actor Edmond O’Brien as Winston Smith.

Donald Pleasance, who had appeared as Syme in the TV version, played an amalgamation of Parsons and Syme in the film.

Kneale’s extraordinarily successful BBC television serial, The Quatermass Experiment (1953) was turned into the film, The Quatermass Xperiment (to exploit its X rating) in 1955. Directed by Val Guest and written by Guest and Richard Landau, it starred fading American actor Brian Donlevy as Bernard Quatermass, who Kneale did not like and who, allegedly, was drinking on set. Like the TV version, it was a success with audiences, though it received mixed reviews, and it’s fair to say that it was in the UK, with the development of Hammer Studios, that the horror film received a boost worldwide.The American poster - note the title change - complete with the monster chasing people scenario typical for posters of this genre

The rather striking Polish poster for The Quatermass Xperiment

Hammer, then a small studio with its Dracula and Frankenstein cycle a year off, wanted to capitalise on it straight away and had Jimmy Sangster prepare a Quatermass-style script; however, Kneale refused to sanction it and it became X The Unknown (1956), a Quatermass movie in all but name about a radioactive substance emerging from the centre of the earth. Here, the intrepid scientist is called Dr Adam Royston and he was played by another fading American star, Dean Jagger. It was to have been directed by Joseph Losey, who had been blacklisted by Hollywood, but Jagger refused to work with a suspected communist sympathiser and the directing job was given to Leslie Norman, father of British film journalist Barry Norman. His approach may have been more workmanlike, but there are scenes of genuine atmospheric terror when two boys run through the woods at night. Further down the cast list are Leo McKern and Anthony Newley.

Intrepid journalist Sid James meets Professor Quatermass

In the meantime, the BBC had commissioned Kneale for another series, Quatermass II. Broadcast in 1955, it concerned an alien invasion but also touched on the corruption of people in power, totalitarian control, and the growth of secretive nuclear establishments. It was another success and Hammer moved to turn it into a film. This time, Kneale adapted it himself and Guest once again directed; despite the writer’s criticism of his previous performance, Brian Donlevy took the starring role. Released in 1957 (and titled Enemy From Space in the US), it was a huge success – but this was surpassed by the first of Hammer’s adaptations of the Universal monster series: The Curse of Frankenstein, which ushered in a new and profitable era for the studio.The American poster - which posits Donlevy, who looked far older than he was, as an unlikely action hero

Although Hammer would still dabble in science fiction, it wasn’t until 1967 that it adapted Kneale’s 1958 series, Quatermass and the Pit. Written by Kneale, it starred Andrew Keir and although it was not as commercially successful as its predecessors, it is widely regarded as a critical success and, along with The Devil Rides Out (1968), one of the best of the later Hammer films, the studio having, by then, opted for sensationalism and plunging necklines over genuine horror.This even more dramatic poster was used in America; note the change of title, which is actually relevant to the storyline

Quatermass is not the whole story of Hammer's science fiction in this period. The Abominable Snowman was a 1957 British horror/sci-fi film, directed by Val Guest and starring the American actor Forrest Tucker and Peter Cushing, who was beginning to make a name for himself in the genre. Based on Nigel Kneale’s TV play, The Creature, it concerns the search in the Himalayas by an American expedition for the Yeti. Kneale adapted his own television script and Cushing reprised his role. Stanley Baker had taken the part of Tom Friend, now played by Tucker. Typically for a Kneale script, this was not a straightforward monster movie but one that saw the Yeti, our collateral descendants from the apes, a group of superior intelligence that is waiting peacefully for humankind to destroy itself through war or pollution, before they inherit the planet. You'll notice that both posters keep the actual appearance of the Yeti as a mystery

See http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s132snow.html

It wasn’t just BBC serials that inspired sci-fi movies; the fledgling ITV’s serial The Trollenberg Terror (1956) was later adapted into a movie of the same title in 1958 starring Laurence Payne (later TV’s Sexton Blake) and Forrest Tucker. Also known as The Crawling Eye, Creature from Another World, The Creeping Eye, and The Flying Eye, it was directed, as was the television series, by Quentin Lawrence and was the final film to be produced by Southall Studios, one of the earliest pioneer film studios in the UK.
This atmospheric chiller involves Journalist Philip Truscott investigating unusual accidents occurring at a Swiss resort where he meets United Nations troubleshooter Alan Brooks (Tucker). However, the strange menace makes itself known through the telepathic reception of a mind-reader (Janet Munro), a heroine key to the drama rather than the stereotypically female screaming victim that we are all familiar with. The monsters are (typically for this period) radioactive and strange clouds begin to move and cut off the escape road to the mountain hotel...
See http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s378eye.html

Yet another British sci-fi movie that features monsters triggered by radioactivity is 1958’s Fiend Without a Face. Directed by Arthur Crabtree, it concerns a series of mysterious deaths at the hands of an invisible monster that steals human brains.

To appeal to American audiences, the film was set on an American airbase in Manitoba, Canada, and featured largely American and Canadian actors living in Britain. Some British actors were even dubbed by Americans. Star Marshall Thompson would appear to be a curious choice. He seldom had a starring role and never in a major film; his key role in the genre occurred the same year in the Alien inspiration It: The Terror From Beyond Space, which was actually released later. He found fame almost 20 years later as the veterinarian in televison’s Daktari.

The locals think fallout from radiation at the base is causing the deaths, but Major Jeff Cummings is suspicious of Professor Walgate, a British scientist who is experimenting with telekinetics. Eventually, he discovers Walgate has succeeded in developing telekinesis, and that nuclear experiments at the base have increased its effect beyond his intentions, creating a new, invisible form of life which escapes the laboratory. They are later revealed to be brain-shaped monsters that suck out the brains of their victims to absorb intelligence.Note the scantily clad girl - always a selling point for a movie like this

Fiend Without A Face was clearly inspired by the success of Quatermass, as was The Strange World of Planet X (1957), which features a small, rural British lab, run by Dr. Laird and his staff who create ultra-intense magnetic fields; the apparatus begins to affect distant objects and to draw extra power from some unknown source. After an unusual storm, strange things happen in nearby Bryerly Woods, insects and spiders begin to mutate into monsters and a UFO hovers over London warning that Laird's experiments will cause a catastrophe. Directed by Gilbert Gunn, it was an adaptation of a seven part ITV serial, though a rather tenuous one, and was clearly inspired by Robert Wise’s The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951).

Forrest Tucker stars as a Canadian scientist as, once again, the producers hoped to increase the film’s appeal across the Atlantic; indeed when it was first released in the USA, it was given the more sensational title of The Cosmic Monsters and is also known as The Crawling Terror and The Crawling Horror.The poster adopts the classic conventions of the period: screaming woman in the foreground being threatened by the monster near the top of the picture

Like American science fiction cinema of this period, British film included its share of sensational trash; nowhere was this more apparent than in Devil Girl From Mars (1954), in which a sexy alien woman dressed in black vinyl lands on a remote Scottish moor looking for virile men to replace the dying male population on her home planet.
The shoestring budget meant that most of the 'action' took place in one room of a pub! Possibly the only noteworthy fact about this movie is that future Thunderbirds creator, Gerry Anderson, worked on the editing.

The Time Machine poster designed by (William) Reynold Brown

Towards the end of the 1950s and in the early 1960s, film adaptations of sci-fi literature became increasingly popular, though the first notable one, Byron Haskin’s George Pal-produced The War Of The Worlds, had been made much earlier, in 1953. Pal looked to H. G. Wells again when he produced and directed The Time Machine in Britain in 1960. Starring the Australian actor Rod Taylor, then making a name for himself in Hollywood playing Americans (and lately seen as Winston Churchill, no less, in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009)), as H. George Wells, and the American Yvette Mimieux as Weena, the girl from the future.

Although it was filmed in Culver City, California, Pal had been unable to sell Hollywood the screenplay, and was backed by British MGM, for whom he had made Tom Thumb (1958) with Russ Tamblyn, Peter Sellers and Terry Thomas.

The Time Machine won an Oscar for time-lapse photographic effects showing the world changing rapidly through time. Pal always intended to make a sequel, but never did.

The actual Time Machine prop has appeared elsewhere - Carl Sagan's TV series Cosmos and Joe Dante's movie, Gremilins, for example.

The 'quad' poster - the style preferred by British cinema chains

The French poster - a simplified version of Brown's original

The Spanish poster

Quad poster favoured by British cinemas

Another 1960 literary adaptation was Village of the Damned, a reasonably faithful adaptation of John Wyndham’s dystopian novel The Midwich Cuckoos, directed by Wolf Rilla.A group of children are all born the same day after an incident months earlier when everyone in the British village of Midwich suddenly fell unconscious and the military established a five-mile exclusion zone even for aircraft. As they grow, they develop at impossible speed and it is obvious they have a telepathic bond with one another. They begin to exhibit the power to read people’s minds and force them to act against their will; for example they make a man kill himself by crashing his car into a wall and then they force his suspicious brother to shoot himself. It is found that similar occurrences happened in other communities around the world.The dramatic Italian version of the poster

Rather than show much in the way of onscreen violence, Rilla peferred to use suggestion and suspense and he hooks the audience by creating a perfectly believable picture of village life, with people going about their everyday business.Poster for the Belgian release

The film was slated to be an American production in 1957, starring Ronald Colman as Professor Gordon Zellaby, the man who discovers more about the children, but MGM shelved the project, deeming it controversial because of the sinister depiction of virgin birth. George Sanders took the role of Zellaby when filming started in England; by then he was married to actress Benita Hume, widow of Colman, who had died in 1958.French poster

A sort of thematic sequel, Children of the Damned, was released in 1963 in which two scientists discover the existence of six genetically similar children with superior intelligence, from China, the USSR, the USA, the UK, Nigeria and India . They take them to London for observation and, with Cold-War tensions building, world governments decide how to use their powers and ask for their return. The children already know this and, using telekinesis, kill several government and military officials, then they hide in an abandoned church waiting for the inevitable confrontation with the armed forces...

John Carpenter remade Village of the Damned in 1995, changing the setting to the US.

Another Wyndham adaptation, The Day Of The Triffids, appeared in 1962. Directed by Steve Sekely, it starred Howard Keel in the central role of Bill Masen to capture the international (that is, American) audience; another pivotal role was given to Kieron Moore, a minor international star and one famous in this genre for his role in The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951); former child star Janette Scott (daughter of Thora Hird and future wife of Mel Tormé) played Moore’s wife.Janette Scott in classic female victim pose

The script is credited to Philip Yordan, but he was acting as a front for Bernard Gordon, who had fallen foul of the House Un-American Activities Committee in America. His friendship with writer/entrepreneur Yordan led to regular work as a writer and producer in Madrid for the Samuel Bronston company; however, he was initially denied any acknowledgement for his work, Yordan crediting himself as sole author of films like Circus World (1964), Battle of the Bulge (1965) and The Day of the Triffids.

Though the film garnered some decent reviews, most were critical of the fact it didn’t stick closely to its source material, particularly the cop-out death-by-seawater ending, which, ironically, along with the meteor shower at the start, is the one thing that sticks in most people’s minds!
It is widely believed that cinematographer and director Freddie Francis, famed for his work on Room at the Top (1959), Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (1960) and The Innocents (1961), one of the best horror movies, stepped in and directed the lighthouse-set climax of the movie.
Belgian poster

Eugene Lourié’s Behemoth, The Sea Monster (1959) is an American-British co-production and an unacknowledged remake of Ray Bradbury's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), also co-scripted and directed by Lourié. In the U.S. it was called The Giant Behemoth; Gene Evans, a supporting actor in many Hollywood movies (notably several directed by Sam Fuller) and television shows, is the American ‘star’.

A large, radioactive Brachiosaurus is swimming off the coast of Cornwall, leaving countless radioactive dead fish. The monster does more damage by accident than by brute force, burning hapless citizens with its radiation; the original idea was more subtle: to have an unknown, shapeless radioactive being that left people dead in its wake, but the producers wanted to take a more sensational angle and the dinosaur monster was created.

The military decide to use a mini-submarine capable of firing a torpedo with enough radioactivity in its warhead to "overdose" the behemoth and kill it. An American scientist and a young Cornish fisherman pilot the sub and kill the behemoth, but the film ends ominously with reports of radioactive fish washed up off the coast of Florida.

The stop-motion animation in the film was supervised by Special Effects master Willis O'Brien, who had worked on many films, including King Kong (1933) and his assistant Pete Peterson. This was one of the the last films to showcase O’Brien’s work.
The German poster made a surprising link in its title!

Lourié also directed Gorgo, a 1961 British variation on Godzilla (1954; American version released in 1955) and the aforementioned King Kong.

It tells the story of a 65 feet tall underwater dinosaur, woken by the eruption of a submerged vocano, is captured off the coast of Ireland near the island of Nara and taken to London as a circus attraction.

Scientists examine Gorgo, think he is not an adult specimen and hypothesise that his mother must be about 200 feet tall. Sure enough, back in Ireland, Ogra, Gorgo’s mother, lays waste to the naval base at Nara then heads to London, detroying Tower Bridge and Big Ben before rescuing her son and heading back to sea.William Sylvster, an American actor who had been living in Britain since the war, provided the link for the American audiences as salvager Sam Slade, one of the men who discover Gorgo. His captain, Joe Ryan, is played by Newcastle-born Bill Travers, later famous for his role as George Adamson in Born Free (1966) and his work to highlight the suffering of animals in zoos throughout Europe. His older sister, Houghton-Le-Spring-born Linden Travers, attended La Sagesse School in Newcastle before going on to an acting career of countless supporting roles, including that of Mrs. Todhunter in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938), before retiring after her second marriage in 1948. Brother Peter Travers ran a garage in Shieldfield.

Val Guest’s The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), is a science-fiction/disaster movie/newpaper movie hybrid with Edward Judd, Leo McKern and Janet Munro.
Filmed on location in London and Brighton, it concerns a Daily Express journalist’s discovery that nuclear testing by the Russians and the Americans has resulted in the earth shifting from its orbit and moving closer to the sun. Order breaks down and martial law is enforced; cities are evacuated; rationing implemented. Meanwhile, scientists work out that detonating more nuclear devices in the west of Siberia will steady the earth’s orbit!

Two versions of the front page of the Daily Express are prepared: "World Saved" and "World Doomed". The staff of the paper wait to see which headline will be correct. The film ends with Stenning (Edward Judd), whose investiagtion uncovered the story, walking through the empty streets of London.

Director Val Guest had intended the ending to remain ambiguous, but church bells were added to the end of the American version to indicate that the world had been saved. He suggested that this studio intervention had been inspired by the 1953 film version of The War of the Worlds, which closes with the sound of church bells to imply the crisis was over.

This gripping film is blessed with a thoughtful plot, some sharp dialogue and excellent naturalistic acting.

Some of the filming took place in the offices of real Daily Express and its former editor, Arthur Christiansen, played himself as the editor of the newspaper. Blink and you’ll miss young Michael Caine as a policeman.

Though the film was photographed in black and white, the original prints were tinted yellow/red in the opening and closing sequences to suggest the intense heat.

Many of the sci-fi films from this period rely on monsters or aliens for shocks, viewing the post-nucelar Cold War world metaphorically; however blacklisted American diector Joseph Losey’s The Damned, based on Children of the Light by H. L. Lawrence, explored many of that era’s fears more directly.

On holiday in Weymouth, an American tourist, Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey, for the American market), meets a young woman, Joan, (Shirley Ann Field), who lures him into a mugging staged by her brother King (Oliver Reed) and his biker gang. They meet later and he forgives her but they are once again threatened by Reed and escape to spend the night in a cliff-top house surrounded by sculptures of twisted human figures (actually made by Elizabeth Frink) but the gang find them again and they head across a military base and are chased by soldiers with dogs. With King in pusuit, they hide in a network of tunnels and bunkers in which they find a group of young boys and girls whose skin is cold to the touch.

The children have been confined to these underground chambers by a scientist, Bernard (Alexnader Knox), who runs the base and who teaches them but limts their knowledge, telling them they’ll know more in good time. They are watched by surveillance cameras and are visited by men in radiation suits.

Wells and Joan manage to stay undetected with the help of the children, but they start to feel unwell but promise to rescue the children with King’s help, but they discover they are radioactive. They escape and see the sun for the first time, but they are recaptured by the military. King flees in a car, but he is chased and he crashes; Wells and Joan escape on a boat but it is followed by a military helicopter which will destroy it when they die of radiation sickness.

Bernard's lover is the sculptress, Neilson (Viveca Lindfors) in whose house Wells and Joan spent the night; she witnesses what happens and he explains the children were bred radioactive and the plan is to release them when nuclear war happens so they will be able to resist the fallout and carry on the human race. When Neilson won’t join Bernard, he kills her. As the film closes, people go about enjoying themselves on the beach unable to hear the desperate cries of the children from the cliffs.

The film was a Hammer productions and perhaps the use of the word ‘Damned’ in the title was to cash in on the success of Village of the Damned, a film the studio had regretted missed out on; the poster, with its blank-eyed children also points towards this. Losey preferred On the Brink – one of several sore points between the director and the studio; another was Columbia’s (the studio’s financial backer) decision to delay the film’s release over Hammer’s objections. In certain quarters of the British Board for Film Classification, the reason behind the making of the film was questioned to the extent that one letter referred to the people behind the project as ‘fellow travellers or paid up members of the Communist party”.

Although it was made in 1961, perhaps due to political considerations and the gang violence (at a time when there was a concern about the rise of youth gangs), the movie was not released in Britain until 1963. Even then it was cut heavily, losing some key speeches, from 96 to 87 minutes in Britain and 77 minutes in America where it was released as These Are the Damned in 1965. A complete print was released in 2007.
One of the children is played by Kit Williams, who later went on to become an author and illustrator, best known for his book, Masquerade.

Perhaps it's fitting that in the era of the Cuban Missile Crisis, science is portrayed as wholly harmful to mankind and that Nigel Kneale's thoughtful scientist who battled government indifference and even conspiracy, has been replaced with another Bernard who is preparing for a nuclear holocaust that he sees as inevitable by destroying the life that Quatermass fought so hard to preserve.

Genre Theory

2010-06-29T16:14:00.008+01:00

Daniel Chandler: Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shared by the texts which are regarded as belonging to them.

It is easy to underplay the differences within a genre. Steve Neale declares that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' (Neale 1980, 48). He adds that 'difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre': mere repetition would not attract an audience.

Texts often exhibit the conventions of more than one genre. John Hartley notes that 'the same text can belong to different genres in different countries or times' (O'Sullivan et al. 1994).
Traditionally, genres (particularly literary genres) tended to be regarded as fixed forms, but contemporary theory emphasizes that both their forms and functions are dynamic. David Buckingham argues that 'genre is not... simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change' (Buckingham 1993).

Daniel Chandler: Every genre positions those who participate in a text of that kind: as interviewer or interviewee, as listener or storyteller, as a reader or a writer, as a person interested in political matters, as someone to be instructed or as someone who instructs; each of these positionings implies different possibilities for response and for action. Each written text provides a 'reading position' for readers, a position constructed by the writer for the 'ideal reader' of the text. (Kress 1988,) Thus, embedded within texts are assumptions about the 'ideal reader', including their attitudes towards the subject matter and often their class, age, gender and ethnicity.

Genre and Audience

'Uses and gratifications' research has identified many potential pleasures of genre, including the following:
•One pleasure may simply be the recognition of the features of a particular genre because of our familiarity with it. Recognition of what is likely to be important (and what is not), derived from our knowledge of the genre, is necessary in order to follow a plot.
•Genres may offer various emotional pleasures such as empathy and escapism - a feature which some theoretical commentaries seem to lose sight of. Aristotle, of course, acknowledged the special emotional responses which were linked to different genres. Deborah Knight notes that 'satisfaction is guaranteed with genre; the deferral of the inevitable provides the additional pleasure of prolonged anticipation' (Knight 1994).
•Steve Neale argues that pleasure is derived from 'repetition and difference' (Neale 1980); there would be no pleasure without difference. We may derive pleasure from observing how the conventions of the genre are manipulated (Abercrombie 1996). We may also enjoy the stretching of a genre in new directions and the consequent shifting of our expectations
•Other pleasures can be derived from sharing our experience of a genre with others within an 'interpretive community' which can be characterized by its familiarity with certain genres (Daniel Chandler).

Tom Ryall (1978) – Genre provides a framework of structuring rules, in the shape of patterns/forms/styles/structures, which act as a form of ‘supervision’ over the work of production of filmmakers and the work of reading by the audience.
John Fiske defines genres as ‘attempts to structure some order into the wide range of texts and meanings that circulate in our culture for the convenience of both producers and audiences.’

Steve Neale (1990) argues that Hollywood’s generic regime performs two inter-related functions: i) to guarantee meanings and pleasures for audiences ii) to offset the considerable economic risks of industrial film production by providing cognitive collateral against innovation and difference.
Neale (1980)- much of the pleasure of popular cinema lies in the process of “difference in repetition” – i.e. recognition of familiar elements and in the way those elements might be orchestrated in an unfamiliar fashion or in the way that unfamiliar elements might be introducedRick Altman argues that genres are usually defined in terms of media language (SEMANTIC elements) and codes (in the Western, for example: guns, horses, landscape, characters or even stars, like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood) or certain ideologies and narratives (SYNTACTIC elements).

Can Genre be defined by audience? Is it a question of film comprehension?
Neale (1990) – Genre is constituted by “specific systems of expectations and hypothesis which spectators bring with them to the cinema and which interact with the films themselves during the course of the viewing process.”
Jonathan Culler (1978) – generic conventions exist to establish a contract between creator and reader so as to make certain expectations operative, allowing compliance and deviation from the accepted modes of intelligibility. Acts of communication are rendered intelligible only within the context of a shared conventional framework of expression.Ryall (1998) sees this framework provided by the generic system; therefore, genre becomes a cognitive repository of images, sounds, stories, characters, and expectations

1. To the producers of films, genre is a template for what they make.
2. To the distributor/promoter, genre provides assumptions about who the audience is and how to market the films for that specific audience.
3. To the audience, it is a label that identifies a liked or disliked formula and provides certain rules of engagement for the spectator in terms of anticipation of pleasure e.g. the anticipation of what will happen in the attic scene of The Exorcist.4. When genres become classic, they can exert tremendous influence: production can be come quicker and more confident because film-makers are following tested formulae and have a ready shorthand to work with, and actors can be filtered into genres and can be seen to have assumed ‘star quality’ when their mannerisms, physical attributes, way of speaking and acting fit a certain style of genre.
5. In turn, viewers become ‘generic spectators’ and can be said to develop generic memory which helps the in the anticipation of events, even though the films themselves might play on certain styles rather than follow closely a clichéd formula. E.g. the attic scene from The Exorcist – we expect something to jump out on the woman because all the generic conventions are in place, but in the end, the director deflates the tension. We do not consume films as individual entities, but in an intertextual way. Film is a post-modern medium in this way, because movies make sense in relation to other films, not to reality.
6. It is the way genre films deviate from the clichéd formulae that leads to a more interesting experience for the viewer, but fore this to work properly, the audience must be familiar with generic conventions and style.David Bordwell notes, 'any theme may appear in any genre... One could... argue that no set of necessary and sufficient conditions can mark off genres from other sorts of groupings in ways that all experts or ordinary film-goers would find acceptable' (Bordwell 1989).

Problems with genre classification

Theorist and Critic Rick Altman (1999) came up with a list of points he found problematic with genre classicfication .
a) Genre is a useful category, because it bridges multiple concerns.
b) Genres are defined by the film industry and recognised by the mass audience.
c) Genres have clear, stable identities and borders.
d) Individual films belong wholly and permanently to a single genre.
e) Genres are transhistorical.
f) Genres undergo predictable development.
g) Genres are located in particular topic, structure and corpus.
h) Genre films share certain fundamental characteristic.
i) Genres have either a ritual or ideological function.
j) Genre critics are distanced from the practice of genre.

Designs for Metropolis (1927)

2010-05-27T23:09:00.001+01:00

Designs for Metropolis by Erich Kettelhut:

Some of these can be found here: http://www.kino.com/metropolis/gallery5.html#gal5

"... for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye."

2010-05-27T22:33:00.003+01:00

Audience Theory...

2010-05-27T21:41:00.002+01:00

Blumler and Katz (1974)- Uses and Gratifications - In this model, theorists were not asking how the media affects audiences, but how were the audiences using the media - suggested that audiences had specific needs and actively turned to the media to consume various texts to a satisfy them. The audience was seen as active. Uses and Gratifications acknowledged that the audience had a choice of texts from which to chose from and satisfy their needs.

Blumler and Katz suggested four main needs of television audiences that are satisfied by television. These included – Diversion (a form of escaping from the pressures of every day), Personal Relationships (where the viewer gains companionship, either with the television characters, or through conversations with others about television), Personal Identity (where the viewer is able to compare their life with the lives of characters and situations on television, to explore, re-affirm or question their personal identity) and Surveillance (where the media are looked on to supply information about world).

Richard Kilborn (1992) offers the following common reasons for watching soaps:
• regular part of domestic routine and entertaining reward for work
• launchpad for social and personal interaction
• fulfilling individual needs: a way of choosing to be alone or of enduring enforced loneliness
• identification and involvement with characters (perhaps cathartic)
• escapist fantasy (American supersoaps more fantastical)
• focus of debate on topical issues
• a kind of critical game involving knowledge of the rules and conventions of the genre

BUT Uses and Gratifications does not consider how the messages are interpreted or any other factors affecting the audience’s interpretation, so…

Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model (1980) – broke down media messages and audience response into referred/resistant/negotiated readings (how might audiences of the same or different backgrounds respond to the messages?):
dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading - in such a stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent'
negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests - this position involves contradictions.
oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.) (e.g. when watching a television broadcast produced on behalf of a political party they normally vote against).

The advantage of the Encoding/Decoding model is that it realises that the meaning made by the audience is affected by various other factors – including socio/economic frameworks and past experiences, but also involving the context in which the media message is consumed. Meanings constructed by the individual watching the news at home with two distracting siblings will be different to meanings constructed while concentrating on the television alone. However - this framework is based on the assumption that the latent meaning of the text is encoded in the dominant code, but suppose there are conflicting tendencies within the text?

Hypodermic Syringe Theory: The Frankfurt school, set up in 1923, were concerned about the possible effects of mass media. They proposed the "Effects" model, which considered society to be composed of isolated individuals who were susceptible to media messages. The Frankfurt school envisioned the media as a hypodermic syringe, and the contents of the media were injected into the thoughts of the audience, who accepted the attitudes, opinions and beliefs expressed by the medium without question. This model was a response to the German fascists use of film and radio for propaganda uses, and later applied to American capitalist society. The followers of the hypodermic model of Effects adopted a variant of Marxism, emphasising the dangers of the power of capitalism, which owned and controlled new forms of media.

Obvious criticism - audiences are not blank sheets of paper on which media messages can be written; members of an audience will have prior attitudes and beliefs which will determine how effective media messages are. (Abercrombie 1996)

Cultivation Theory – Professor George Gerbner began the 'Cultural Indicators' research project in the mid-1960s, to study whether and how watching television may influence viewers' ideas of what the everyday world is like. Cultivation research is in the 'effects' tradition. Cultivation theorists argue that television has long-term effects which are small, gradual, indirect but cumulative and significant.

The question is, of course, just how do viewers consume soaps. Gerbner (1986) felt viewers can’t escape the encroachment of television into their lives, that it ‘cultivates the minds of viewers over a long period of time.’ A study of American college students found that heavy soap opera viewers were more likely than light viewers to over-estimate the number of real-life married people who had affairs or who had been divorced and the number of women who had abortions (Dominick, 1990).

However, Hawkins and Pingree (1983) could not find conclusive proof of the direction of the relationship between television viewing and viewers' ideas about social reality.

Cultivation theorists tend to ignore the importance of the social dynamics of television use. Interacting factors such as developmental stages, viewing experience, general knowledge, gender, ethnicity, viewing contexts, family attitudes and socio-economic background all contribute to shaping the ways in which television is interpreted by viewers. When the viewer has some direct lived experience of the subject matter this may tend to reduce any cultivation effect. This raises the question: to what extent does the frequency of the messages, or the social experiences of the viewers affect how much they 'believe' the messages?

Gary Giddens (1991) claims that mediated experiences make us reflect upon and rethink our own self-narrative in relation to others.

David Gauntlett (2002): Media messages are diverse, diffuse and contradictory. Rather than being zapped straight into people's brains, ideas about lifestyle and identity that appear in the media are resources which individuals use to think through their sense of self and modes of expression.

Greg Philo of the Glasgow Media Group notes that the audience does not exist as a silent mass with a collective identity, but as active, thinking, reflective, creative audiences who share cultural experiences in common – and this is surely all the more so when viewers can re-evaluate their relationship to the text by interacting with each other through conversation or through fan sites.

Night of the Demon and the BBFC

2010-04-22T15:59:00.002+01:00

As atmospheric and genuinely suspenseful as Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon is, the horror is largely psychological and the apdearance of the demon itself, even bearing in mind that this was the era of movie monsters like Them! and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, comes across as awkward rather than terrifying; however, during the production stages, there were several conflicts with the British Board of Film Classification.The first version of the script was called The Bewitched and was written by Charles Bennett, who had collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on a number of films. An early draft of the script was submitted by producer Marcel Hellman to the BBFC (at the time known as the British Board of Film Censors) in January 1955 in the hope of getting an A certificate to attract a teenage audience.
The anonymous examiner (known only by the initials AAA) returned a long list of concerns, at the root of which lay the fact that no rational explanation was given for events in the story – in other words, the “goings-on are clearly intended to be supernatural.”

She said, “I cannot suggest any way of making this story ‘A’. Even for ‘X’, we do not want the picture (which hangs in Karswell’s room) of the Black Mass, or any references to it. I am not sure whether we want the séance or not [because it is not exposed as fake]…” A number of scenes were objected to, including:
The pursuit of Harrington by the Thing (with the sound of its panting)
Harrington’s notes about the Thing
Karswell’s tricks at the party – bringing a snake from his hat and frightening the children
Woodcut of ‘dinosaur’ accompanied by thunder and lightning
The séance
Supernatural cat
Karswell’s terror-stricken flight and death

The fear was that teenagers would be able to suspend disbelief more than adults…
Another fear was the Americanisation of the picture – presumably a reference to the type of horror in the film. Bear in mind that educationalists, religious and political figures in the country were also objecting the way American horror comics of the time were ‘corrupting’ the youth of Britain.
A second examiner (BBB) doubted that an X was enough, particularly scenes like Holden’s confrontation with the cat while looking for Karswell’s book and the Thing’s pursuit of Holden.

Hellman tried submitting the script to the Motion Picture Association of America in the hope of getting it accepted for a younger audience. Although it received a more considered and careful opinion, objections were made to several scenes, like the séance, the depiction of the Black Mass (“should not be orgiastic”) and some of the language used (“hotter than hell” and “For God’s sake”). The Director of Production Code Administration, Geoffrey Shurlock, recommended that Hellman consider the Association’s recommendations and make changes.

Again, the script was submitted to the BBFC. This time, a different examiner was equally hostile:
“[Some] scenes are horrific, as the monstrous shape or its ‘white leprous hand’ are seen; its victims show abject terror, and the script makes it clear that terrifying effects are to be obtained from the music.”
Bizarrely, he highlighted differences between the script and the M. R. James story it is based on and noted that the depiction of the Black Mass (in a painting, remember), showing demons dressed in masks indulging in an orgy with ‘lissom, unclothed young women whose lovely faces are infinitely evil’ had to be cut. Amongst other sequences he thought had to be cut was one in which a boy pulled a cat’s tail! Dialogue considered (but not objected to this time) included, “You can take a running jump at yourself” – presumably, this was because it was euphemistically saying, “Go fuck yourself!”

Like AAA, he objected to the fact that the first page of the script pointed out that the film would be a “light-heartedly dramatic excursion into what might or might not be the supernatural” – presumably because the events depicted were most certainly supernatural.

AAA weighed in with her opinion again, saying it could only be considered for an ‘X’ certificate.
Hellman made a personal phonecall to A. T. L. Watkins, Secretary of the BBFC, on 11 March 1955, and a note sent in reply later that day made his position that it should receive an ‘X’ clear: “ The supernatural element, with its steady building up of fear, and particularly the fear of darkness could not… fail to be terrifying to children.” He added that it was impossible to suggest cuts that would guarantee it an ‘A’.

As the script underwent re-writes and new producers came on board (Hal. E Chester, Clive Nicholas and Frank Bevis) much of Bennett’s humour was dropped – in favour of a more adult approach to the supernatural as it became clear that the film was to be aimed at an ‘X’ audience.

Several examiners at the BBFC saw the new draft of the script and were pleased it was to be aimed at an ‘X’ audience, but concern was expressed that this should not open the door to unlimited horror and bad taste and one called for the complete omission of Hobart’s praise of Black Magic and the picture of the Black Mass, noting: “I disliked particularly the sequence… where Karswell’s skill at conjuring before a delighted group of children is followed by a storm provoked by his malignant power so that the children are screaming with fear and running in terror.”
Secretary Watkins stressed that there limits as to what could be shown, even with a an ‘X’ certificate, noting that “great deal will depend upon treatment” and the final word rested with the examiners after they had seen the completed film. However, he still advised on a number of specific points:
Shots of the monster should not be too revolting
Harrington’s death should not be overdone and there should be no shots of him on fire or twitching in agony
The portrayal of children’s fears calls for reasonable restraint – i.e. don’t exploit the children in the fear to emphasise the horror
There must be no description of the rites of devil worship
Hobart’s madness and jump through the window must not be depicted in detail
Restraint must be shown in the pursuit of Karswell by the beast and the sounds, including screams, should not be too excessiveAn amended script was sent to the BBFC on October 23, less than a month before shooting was to begin. AAA was the examiner and she noted that there were even more references to Devil worship she didn’t think they would make too much of an impression on the audience. She noted the continued presence and wanted the removal of the Black Mass painting and the description of the true believer. A number of other sequences disturbed her, such as the death of Harrington and the appearance of the beast, the climax of the séance, Hobart’s leap to death and she specified that there should be no shot of Karswell on fire.
In the final letter from Watkins, he warned that any references to “devil worship” should be removed (and the phrase avoided); the Black Mass painting should be removed; and the points noted by AAA should be taken into consideration; however, he added that the final decision would rest with the examiners on seeing the completed film.

The BBFC ordered only one cut – in Rand Hobart’s speech while under hypnosis. They said the filmmakers needed to “Reduce Hobart’s cries when he escapes for the first time into the audience, and the close shots of Hobart’s face when he is being spoken to and interrogated by psychologists; and remove his words, “We blaspheme and desecrate … in the joy of sin will mankind find itself again.”” An X certificate was recommended and it was noted that several earlier drafts had been seen.See Tony Earnshaw - Beating the Devil: The Making of Night of the Demon (The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and Tomahawk Press, 2005)

And let's not forget the post below!

Night of the Demon

2010-04-22T15:56:00.000+01:00

“Like one upon a lonesome road he walks in fear and dread,
because he knows that close behind a frightful fiend doth tread.”
- Coleridge

Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon (1957) is a (largely) subtle and atmospheric movie set in England and based on the M. R. James short story Casting the Runes (1911). Many critics regard it as one of the high points in the horror genre, despite the somewhat clunky, though brief, monster footage that was in keeping with the contemporary trend in horror ‘monster’ movies; think of Jack Arnold’s Creature of the Black Lagoon (1954), for example, or the giant ants in Gordon Douglas’ Them! (1954).

The plot concerns an American Professor, John Holden, flying to England and investigating a Satanic cult’ led by Julian Karswell. He had been invited there by Professor Henry Harrington, but in the interim, he has mysteriously died and his niece, Joanna, blames Karswell. Holden, of course, becomes involved with Joanna but remains sceptical of Karswell’s powers until it is almost too late.

As you’d expect from Tourneur, who had directed several unnerving classics of the genre like I Walked with a Zombie and Cat People (both 1942), as well as the seminal film noir, Out of The Past (1947), the mise-en-scène's combination of cinematography and lighting creates an atmosphere of fear – take the sequence where Holden leaves Karswell’s house and returns to Joanna Harrington through the menacing woods; the séance that starts off comical but swiftly

turns unsettling; the children’s party at Karswell’s estate when he demonstrates his powers to the sceptical Holden; or Holden alone in the dark, narrow, empty hotel corridor.

However, you will have to be charitable to the special effects involved in the demon’s two brief appearances and Holden’s fight with a stuffed ‘leopard’!

Screenwriter Charles Bennett, who had worked with Alfred Hitchcock on a number of films (The Thity Nine Steps (1939), Sabotage (1936) and Foreign Correspondent (1940), among others), held the rights to the original story and wrote a script based on it under the title The Haunted. He sold the script to independent producer and former child actor Hal E. Chester, who initially planned to make a monster movie aimed at a teenage audience. However, when the script was submitted to the BBFC, they balked at a film that seemed to acknowledge the existence of demons and the successful practice of black magic and demanded a number of changes, including the removal of a scene in which a painting of a black mass was to be shown! Eventually, it was decided to go for an X certificate and an older audience, but even then, the BBFC demanded cuts, including references to what being a “true believer” entails. Bizarrely, this sequence remains in the final cut that was released in the UK.

Tourneur has since claimed that he rewrote some of the script to give it a “pseudo-honest” feel to it. He was brought in to direct under recommendation to Chester from the producer Ted Richmond; the producer of Tourneur's previous film Nightfall (1957). Arguments occurred during filming between Chester and Tourneur. One event was during the filming of the wind scene, Tourneur tried to convince him that he needed to upgrade his two electric fans to two airplane engines. When Chester hesitated, Tourneur's friend and leading actor Dana Andrews threatened to leave.

Although it’s often suggested that Chester insisted on the inclusion of the monster after most of the movie was shot, it’s now apparent that he wanted this from the start to make it more commercial and he secured the help of blacklisted Cy Enfield to intergrate the monster in the story and Enfield may even have directed the process shots involving its appearance – against the wishes of Tourneur who claimed, “The scenes where you see the demon were shot without me...the audience should never have been completely certain of having seen the demon."

Tourneur, speaking to Midi-minuit fantastique, as printed in Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall (Johns Hopkins University Press), by Chris Fujiwara, claimed, “The scenes in which you really see the demon were shot without me. All except one. I shot the sequence in the woods where Dana Andrews is chased by this sort of cloud. This technique should have been used for the other sequences. The audience should never have been completely certain of having seen the demon. They should have just unveiled it little by little, without ever really showing it. They ruined the film by showing it from the very beginning with a guy we don’t know opening his garage, who doesn’t interest us in the least.”

However, it was in the original script and its presence had been debated over before any of the film was shot, so there is no doubt Tourneur knew of it.

Bennett’s reaction to the visualisation of the demon was even angrier: "If [Chester] walked up my driveway right now, I'd shoot him dead."

An American ‘star’ was vital to help the film’s distribution in the US – a factor in the appearances of many American actors in British films of this time, whether second-grade types like Forrest Tucker in Hammer’s The Abominable Snowman (1957) or former starts like Brian Donleavy in the same studio’s The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and Quatermass 2 (1957). Dana Andrews fits into this second category – a major star whose career was experiencing a downturn (not unlike Tourneur’s) and like Donleavy, it was said that his drinking hampered his performance and there are certainly scenes in Night of the Demon where he seems a little off-key.

The most striking performance is Niall McGinnis as Karswell; his affability conceals his sinister intent and while he is ruthless to others, he is aware that he's tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain power, but he also knows he is vulnerable to the forces of the demon too.

The film’s production designer was Ken Adam, later to make a name for himself on the James Bond series as well as by his work with Stanley Kubrick. A particularly fine example of his art is the set for the interior of Karswell’s house. While its columns and statues suggest a temple, the chess-board floor pattern indicates the battle of wills between Holden and Karswell and the space of the set is beautifully exploited by Tourneur’s use of deep focus when Holden breaks in and is filmed from the top of the stairs, seemingly alone until a hand dramatically grabs the top of the banister.

Chester cut thirteen minutes of the film for the American film release and the title was changed to Curse of the Demon. Some of the narration is absent from the titles, the aeroplane sequence is shorter and some of the scenes with Karswell and his mother are cut. One key scene missing is the one with Karswell's mother showing Joanna the occult book; another is Holden's visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Holden's experience in the hallway of the hotel is moved and the new fades and dissolves aren’t well-disguised and one cut even occurs in the middle of a previous dissolve!

Night of the Demon was released in the UK in December 1957 as part of a double bill with the American film 20 Million Miles to Earth. In the United States, as Curse of the Demon, it played drive-ins and cinemas with The True Story of Lynn Stuart and The Revenge of Frankenstein.

Credits:

Night of the Demon (1957)
Director: Jacques Tourneur Writer(s): (in credits order) M.R. James (story Casting the Runes) (as Montague R. James), Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester
Cast: Dana Andrews - Dr. John Holden, Peggy Cummins - Joanna Harrington, Niall MacGinnis - Dr. Julian Karswell, Maurice Denham - Professor Henry Harrington, Athene Seyler - Mrs. Karswell, Liam Redmond - Professor Mark O'Brien, Reginald Beckwith - Mr. Meek, Ewan Roberts - Lloyd Williamson, Peter Elliott - Professor K.T. Kumar, Rosamund Greenwood - Mrs. Meek, Brian Wilde - Rand Hobart, Richard Leech - Inspector Mottrarn, Lloyd Lamble - Detective Simmons, Peter Hobbes - Superintendent, Charles Lloyd Pack - Chemist, John Salew - Librarian, Janet Barrow - Mrs. Hobart (deleted from US print), Percy Herbert - Farmer (deleted from US print), Lynn Tracy - Air Hostess (deleted from US print), Ballard Berkeley - 1st Reporter, Shay Gorman - Narrator, Walter Horsbrugh - Bates, the Butler, Michael Peake - 2nd Reporter, Leonard Sharp - Ticket Collector

A detailed piece on the film:
http://alsolikelife.com/shooting/2008/06/918-59-night-of-the-demon-aka-curse-of-the-demon-1957-jacques-tourneur/
A comparison between the source material and the film:
http://hollywoodgothique.com/curseofthedemon1957.html
A website dealing with M. R. James:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/GS.html
M. R. James; Casting the Runes:
http://www.fadl12200.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/castrunes2.html

A good book on the making of the film and some of the controversies around it is Tony Earnshaw's Beating the Devil: The Making of Night of the Demon (The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and Tomahawk Press, 2005)

The title song of Kate Bush's album Hounds of Love, uses a soundbyte of dialogue from Night of the Demon: “It’s in the trees…it’s coming", a line spoken during the séance as someone has a vision of the demon’s attack.

Distribution - Questions you need to be able to answer

2010-04-21T21:43:00.002+01:00

1/ How does distribution in the independent sector differ from that in mainstream Hollywood and other ‘industrial’ cinema?

2/ Two types of distribution: local and national. Explain the difference.

3/ What kind of things have to be considered before the release of a film?

4/ What’s the key difference between the marketing of a major commercial film and an independent film; why do you suppose this; what are the probable ramifications?

5/ What are the disadvantages of the current method of distribution?

6/ What are the advantages of digital distribution?

Distribution

2010-04-21T21:30:00.002+01:00

Distribution = releasing and sustaining films in the market place.

In the practice of Hollywood and other forms of industrial cinema, the phases of production, distribution and exhibition operate most effectively when 'vertically integrated', where the three stages are seen as part of the same larger process, under the control of one company.

In the UK, distribution is very much focused on marketing and sustaining a global product in local markets.

In the independent film sector, vertical integration does not operate so commonly. Producers tend not to have long-term economic links with distributors, who likewise have no formal connections with exhibitors. Here, distribution = collaborative process, requiring the materials and rights of the producer and the cooperation of the exhibitor to promote and show the film in the best way possible. In this sector, distribution can be divided into three stages - licensing, marketing and logistics.

A/ Licensing - the process by which a distributor acquires the legal right to exploit a film. In distribution, licensing itself can take place on two levels.

International distribution ensures that films find their way to the 90+ market 'territories' around the world. The major US studios generally have their own distribution offices in all the major territories. By contrast, independent producers have to sell their films to different distributors in each territory. Independent production companies are usually small concerns, sometimes set up for one film and often lacking the necessary knowledge or contacts of each of the territories around the world. Instead of doing this themselves, they might choose to hire a specialist sales agent, whose function is to understand the value of a film in many different markets. The sales agent will then set up stall at the film markets that take place throughout the year.

'Local' distribution - involves the distributor acquiring the licence to release and exploit the film in a particular country. The distributor will usually pay the producer a minimum guarantee for the licence. This fee will vary depending on the status and perceived commercial potential of the film, and on the range of rights that the distributor chooses to exploit. A distributor will usually be offered theatrical rights, for showing the film in cinemas; video rights, for video and DVD exploitation; and TV rights, if the distributor is able to sell the film to a broadcaster.

In addition to paying a fee to secure the film, the licence will stipulate that the distributor will also pay royalties to the producer, taken from the profits that the film generates. A local distributor will conventionally share profits equally with the producer for the theatrical leg, pay back higher royalties for broadcast rights, and lower for video/DVD.

Once the licence has been agreed, it is then the distributor's job to launch the film. UK - feature films are released initially theatrically. A theatrical opening - most effective way to create interest in film. The big screen - optimum setting for both audiences and the filmmakers.

Some months following the theatrical release, a film will be packaged and released on DVD and VHS video, then on various forms of pay television and eventually, two years after opening in cinemas, on free-to-air television. Value of the film built up by its theatrical release reaps dividends during its release cycle, influencing audiences and commercial value it subsequently commands. Each stage - successful distributor must have in-depth knowledge of marketplace - which cinemas, video outlets and broadcasters can best draw an audience for its films - and of the variable marketing costs involved in releasing a film in that territory. The trick is to weigh up the two factors, to invest as much as is needed in promoting film to draw out maximum returns.

B/ Marketing - In the UK, new films are released theatrically on Fridays. The schedule for forthcoming releases is coordinated and published by the Film Distributors Association. A distributor will assess this schedule to identify a Friday release date where there are only a few films scheduled for release. Finding a 'light' week will ensure that there will be both screen space and adequate review column inches in the press allocated to any potential release.

A further consideration for scheduling a release is the seasonality of the film. For example, it is widely assumed within the industry that specialised films have the greatest potential to reach audiences during the academic year.

Finally, the distributor will try to position the film distinctively and avoid a release date occupied by other films with similar traits (story, subject, country of origin). In recent years in the UK, these two aspects of release planning have become increasingly difficult, as the release schedule has regularly featured over 10new releases in a week.

After setting a release date, the distributor works towards the theatrical release, investing in the materials and the marketing campaign to support it.

The costs of theatrical distribution, met by local distributors, are often referred to as 'P&A', or Prints and Advertising. P&A are the nuts and bolts of marketing and distributing films into cinemas, the tools used by the distributor to create a public for its film. P&A also represent the bulk of the distributor's investment, after paying the initial fee for rights, and can range from less than £1,000 to over £1 million for the release of a film in the UK.

Distribution: Marketing: Prints and Advertising – key elements -
The quantity and production of release prints and trailers - Specialised films will often be released with fewer than 10 prints into key independent cinemas, with these prints subsequently 'toured' over a 6-month period to all parts of the UK. On the other hand, commercial mainstream films often open on over 200 prints, simultaneously screening in all major UK towns and cities.

Press materials, clips reels, images, press previews, screener tapes - For the majority of releases, favourable press response is a key factor in developing the profile and desirability of a film. Distributors consider both the quality and breadth of coverage, and this is often inscribed into the nature and scale of a press campaign.

The design and printing of posters and other promotional artwork - The cinema poster - in the UK this means the standard 30" x 40" 'quad' format - is still the cornerstone of theatrical release campaigns. Numerous recent examples indicate that the poster design is highly effective in 'packaging' the key attributes of a film for potential audiences. Distributors will also consider other poster campaigns, ranging from Underground advertising to billboards.

Advertising campaign - locations, ad size and frequency - Advertising in magazines, national and local newspapers works in tandem with press editorial coverage to raise awareness of a release. Press advertising campaign for specialised films will select publications and spaces close to relevant editorial. For mainstream films, scale and high visibility is the key. Cost of print advertising in the UK is comparatively high - seen as making distribution in the UK a riskier business than most other countries. To extend reach of advertising and develop more effective communication with audiences at low cost, distributors look increasingly to 'viral marketing' - forms of electronic word-of-mouth via the internet, email and mobile phones.
Press campaign / contracting a PR agency - Many independent distributors in particular do not have press departments, and hire a press agency to run a pre-release campaign. This is especially the case if the distributor brings over key talent for press interviews to support the release.

Arranging visit by talent from the film - use of talent - usually the director and/or lead actors - wins significant editorial coverage to support a release. The volume of coverage can far outweigh the cost of talent visits. A distributor will consider the use of advance public screenings to create word-of-mouth and advance 'buzz' around a film.

Logistics - The distributor will enter into an agreement with the cinema to screen the film on certain 'play-dates'. It is the responsibility of the distributor to arrange the transportation of the film to the cinema, as part of its wider coordination of print use across the UK. Logistics represents the phase of distribution at its most basic - supplying and circulating copies of the film to theatres, of tapes and DVDs to shops and video rental stores, and managing the effectiveness of the supply. The showing of films in cinemas is a time-pressured activity. Cinemas spend their money publicising film play-dates and times in local papers or through published programmes. There's an imperative for the distributor to deliver the film on time.

For UK theatrical exhibition, the distributor typically handles 35mm film prints, costing around £1,000 - or double if subtitled - so care is required of everyone involved in handling the print. In the UK, prints are generally broken down for ease of handling into smaller reels, each lasting around 18-20 minutes when run through a projector at 24 frames per second. So a feature print, in its physical form, will usually be 5 or 6 reels, stored and supplied in a single hard case, weighing in at 20-25kgs. Prints are hired by the exhibitor for the duration of their play-dates, and therefore each print is made for repeat use. It's easy to see from this that, during the course of even a short theatrical release period, any single print needs to be moved many times from the main print warehouse, onto a delivery van, to the cinema, onto an assembly bench, through the projector and then back through the process and onto the next cinema.

35mm theatrical prints suffer cumulative damage passing through different projectors, and hands of projectionists. Overheads incurred by the distributor for the storage of prints at the UK's central print warehouse in West London - each theatrical print has a finite lifespan. The distributor will invest in sufficient prints to provide optimum coverage through the first period of theatrical release, usually lasting up to 6 months. From this point on, many of the now used release prints will be destroyed, leaving only a small number to be used for second-run and repertory theatrical bookings through the remainder of the film's licensed period.

Distribution: Digital Distribution
Towards the end of 2005, the UK distribution and exhibition sectors were starting to move towards digital distribution and exhibition. For exhibitors, digital projection, especially when married to the increasing use digital formats in production, can now replicate - if not surpass - the image quality of conventional 35mm cinema presentation. And, of course, digital sound systems have been used in cinemas for some time.

In distribution terms, the advantages of digital technology are even clearer, though perhaps longer term. Digital technology is seen to offer a more cost effective and logistics-light alternative to the tried and trusted, but unwieldy model of 35mm print distribution described above. Eventually - cheaper and much less stressful to send films as computer files to cinemas across the UK, than to transport 20-25kg tins of film in the back of a van.

Digital distribution and exhibition on a large scale has started to appear in certain parts of the world, notably China and Brazil, where conventional logistics cannot, for one reason or another, efficiently bring together supply and demand. In the UK, digital technology has been embraced by the non-theatrical sector, in film societies and schools, where the use of DVD and mid-range digital projection has replaced 16mm.

The force of this change, coupled with the new capacity of technology to replicate 35mm imaging, has led the UK Film Council to establish a digital distribution and exhibition programme for the theatrical sector at the end of 2005. Entitled the Digital Screen Network (DSN), it will eventually support new facilities in 211 screens across the country (out of a total of just over 3,300 screens in the UK), and is seen as a small but important step change towards full digital cinema.
The DSN will initially work with files transferred from a high definition digital master (either HDD5, or HD Cam). The compressed and encrypted files will be sent directly to cinemas to be downloaded, de-encrypted (unlocked) and opened as files for screening with digital projection equipment. In principle, digital distribution will, in time, change the paradigm of 35mm print logistics. Possible for the distributor to send feature film files electronically, via broadband networks, thus eliminating dependence on transportation.

There is little doubt that the advent of digital distribution has the potential radically to alter the work of distributors around the world. The comparatively low cost of film copies and additional logistical effectiveness of digital distribution provide the distributor with greater flexibility. It will be less expensive in the coming years to offer a wide theatrical opening with many copies, and also conversely, to screen a film for just one performance at any cinema. In theory - possible for both distributors and exhibitors to respond more precisely to audience demand.

All this suggests that in the future, more titles, both mainstream and specialised, will receive wide theatrical openings, and that this broadening of access at the point of release will dramatically reduce the overall theatrical period from 3-6 months to perhaps 1-3 months. Films will then enter into a second-run and repertory programming market aided by lower costs.

The shortened first-run period will in turn bring forward the distributor's release of the DVD. And there's the rub. The adoption of digital technologies offers greater opportunities for distributors to create joined-up campaigns for theatrical and DVD releases, in which, increasingly, the theatrical opening is used as a way of providing a loss-leading marketing platform for the highly lucrative DVD leg.

Slumdog and Reception Studies

2010-04-21T21:23:00.003+01:00

Slumdog has quickly become one of the most discussed films of recent times. This is perhaps less to do with the film in terms of its narrative (although audiences seem genuinely entertained by its ideas and their presentation) and more to do with its status as a cultural object. The critical and industry discussion of the film started as soon as it was released in the US in December and at the time of its UK release in late January this intensified into a debate in the press and the media more generally. This in turn was revived and extended at the time of the Oscar triumph in February. At the same time, the film created a mixed response in India (again affected by Oscar success with some Indian commentators caught between wanting to condemn the film for being ‘not Indian enough’, but at the same time wanting to celebrate Oscar success for A R Rahman (twice) and sound recordist Resul Pookutty.

Range of debates around the film which make it a candidate for a global or possibly ‘globalising’ product. One focuses on ideas about realism – is the film denigrating India by showing the reality of poverty or denigrating it by offering a ‘Western view, a tourist’s view rather than a realist view? These are mutually exclusive arguments frequently presented.

A second argument surrounds the extent to which the film draws on existing Indian Cinema (in all its manifestations) and mixes it with Western styles. This is my position, but others argue forcibly against it. Much depends of course on the width of viewing experience of the critic. It is worth remembering that some Indian commentators may not watch any other Indian films outside of Bollywood. The extent of the release in both English and Hindi versions of the film is important, as is the success of the soundtrack album in reaching a wider Indian audience.
• What kinds of audience behaviour and consumption are increasingly global?
• What are the arguments for and against global media, in relation to content, access, representation and identity?
The Indian cinema audiences are moving towards a mode of cinemagoing that is more closely aligned to that of North America, Europe and East Asia, i.e. through the new-build multiplexes, now with digital projection. However, there is a distinct divide between the poor and the new middle class and between the rural and urban audiences. There are thousands of traditional cinemas in India in which audience behaviour will be much slower to change (see Indian research into audience behaviour quoted in Understanding Audiences and the Film Industry, 2007: 158). At the same time, satellite TV (often pirated), VCDs and DVDs (also pirated) may be supplying poorer audiences with greater access to films (as well as ‘World Cinema’ to upmarket audiences).

Is this a ‘good thing’ or a ‘bad thing’? Cultural imperialism? Hollywood is approaching the newly emergent Indian media conglomerates with rapidity, but also some trepidation. (DreamWorks was effectively bought by the Indian major, Reliance, not the other way round.) In an Indian context, issues over identity may be played out much more in a Hindi v Tamil/Telugu stand-off or fears that a ‘globalised’ and unified Indian national identity might threaten as a regional power to overwhelm Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Other aspect of debate - the role of the Non-Resident Indian audience in the UK. To a large extent, Bollywood films in the UK are still playing to a ‘diasporic (i.e. Indians living in the UK) audience’. Both Hollywood and Bollywood seek that potential crossover hit – an Indian produced film that attracts a general UK and US audience. Slumdog is arguably nearer to that goal than the Hollywood co-produced Indian films so far released.

Slumdog as a Global Film?!

2010-04-21T21:19:00.003+01:00

Global media?
If we take global media to be concerned with media forms that are produced in several different production contexts around the world, which then circulate in more than one market and in so doing influence production in the second market. In this way the medium is increasingly globalised as domestic industries mutate through a process of interaction.

In terms of film, up until now the predominant form of change in the international film industry has been of a hegemonic Hollywood across most markets slowly absorbing new talent and ideas thrown up by smaller commercial industries, which have in turn often imitated and stolen Hollywood material. In this paradigm, Hollywood has had little contact with the major film industries of India and has recently found itself to a certain extent rebuffed by renascent industries in Japan, South Korea and the ‘three Chinas’. This challenge to Hollywood has been met by the activities of the major US studios in seeking production deals with South Asian and East Asian producers. In historical terms, this represents something of a return to the 1960s when Hollywood studios attempted to create co-production deals in Europe, especially in Italy and with Japan, but the current engagement with India and China is new. However, the early attempts to engage directly with Indian producers on films such as Chandni Chowk to China (2008) has so far proved strikingly unsuccessful. It is in this context that the distribution and exhibition of Slumdog Millionaire has been so striking.

What makes Slumdog Millionaire so different?
• An Indian property – an Indian novel, Q & A, written in English by Vikas Swarup;
• A UK production company, Film 4, and its partner, Celador, the owner of the rights to the TV format at the centre of the novel, WWTBAM;
• A UK scriptwriter, Simon Beaufoy and UK director Danny Boyle
• Indian musical composer, A R Rahman
• UK dept heads and Indian crew
• One UK actor plus stars of Bollywood and parallel cinema plus non-professional actors
• An Indian shoot and shared post-production India/UK
• A Hollywood studio as North American distributor via its specialist label
• A British/French distributor in the UK
• An Indian subsidiary of a Hollywood studio (Warners) as distributor in India
• Appearances at international film festivals, culminating in awards in the US and UK
• Given a budget of either $10 million or £10 million (sources vary), Slumdog has been a major commercial success. As of 3/3/09 box office grosses were as follows:
US $100 million; UK $37 million; after these, the biggest markets have been France, Australia, Italy, Spain; India (Hindi) $2.6 million; India (English) $3.4 million.
Note that the film has not been a big hit in Hindi markets, but has done very well in English language markets (don’t forget it is still a third Hindi in the English prints). Since tickets for Hindi halls are generally likely to be lower priced than the English language screens, it still means a sizeable audience of around 8-10 million Indians (plus pirated DVD viewings etc.).

Slumdog as a British Film?!

2010-04-21T21:15:00.002+01:00

a) A key issue about the British film industry is what defines British cinema
b) Slumdog – set in India; source material was by an Indian writer, although not written in traditional Indian literary style; many of the film’s crew were Indian; all but one of the principle and the majority of the supporting cast were Indian; almost a third of the dialogue is in Hindi.
c) Director, writer, lead actor, key members of the film crew were British; two-thirds of the dialogue was in English; the initial funding for the production was British; the production company and producer were British.
d) It was passed as British by the UK Film Council and thus received tax allowances. However, this has fairly stringent criteria, based on cultural content, cultural contribution, cultural hubs and cultural practitioners and films have to score at least 16 points out of a possible 31 to pass. On cultural content it may get 5 or 6 – the subject matter has some British cultural connection and the dialogue is mainly in English; cultural contribution – it uses British creativity; cultural hubs – although it was filmed abroad there was post-production work in the UK , cultural practitioners – most cast and crew are Indian, but key figures are British. Be lucky if you could award it 12 or 13 points. However, it is believed it passed on the strength of a letter of support written by Christian Coulson, in which he argued the film was a meaningful contribution to British culture.

It could have received tax allowances had it been a co-production with an Indian company as the UK has co-production agreements with certain countries; or if it had qualified as British under European conventions (for which it could’ve received support for screenings, distribution etc.). However, it was a wholly UK-financed production (US money was only involved for distribution) and it was not a co-production with an Indian company.
Influence of British production background as opposed to British/American like Working Title films – no American star.